Search results for ""author robert mendelsohn""

The impact of climate change on seven regions of the United States is studied in this new and accessible collection. The study examines how the different regions of the United States may be affected by climate change. In particular, the study explores whether warming would be beneficial to the northern (colder) regions but harmful to the economies of the southern (warmer) regions. The study examines important sectors of the US economy that are likely to be affected by climate change. It examines agriculture, forestry, water resources, energy, and coastal resources. Economic models are used to examine each sector and there is a separate chapter for each sector. Because the study focuses on including efficient adaptation responses, the special role of adaptation is discussed in detail. The book concludes with a discussion of the impacts across the country and in each region. Any reader interested in climate change and its impacts will find this book of detailed results enlightening. The book is especially useful for people interested in studying impact methodologies.

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Climate scientists have determined that recent global temperature increases are due in large part to increased greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Even if mitigation of these gases begins immediately, there is every reason to believe that climate change will continue to occur. Every region in the world ought to forecast, as the contributors do in this study of California (a region of broad variation and high population), how it will be affected by climate change and how it might best adapt. Models are used to estimate potential physical and biological impacts, efficient adaptations, and residual damages from climate change. The contributors cover a broad array of climate change impacts on affected market sectors (including water supply, agriculture, coastal resources, timber, and energy demand) as well as ecosystems and biodiversity. An integrated hydrologic-agriculture model is developed to explore how the region would adapt to changes in water flows. Interactions between climate impacts and population and economic growth, urbanization, and technological change are also explored. For example, the study examines how both climate change and projected land development affect the region's terrestrial ecosystems and biodiversity.The level of geographical detail, along with the broad applicability of the modeling, methodology, and conclusions, make this a unique and valuable reference for environmental economists, scientists, planners, and policymakers.

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The Economics of Pollution Control in the Asia Pacific adapts environmental economics to the special conditions of the Asia Pacific region, emphasizing the importance of local conditions and culture. Global warming, air pollution and water pollution are all addressed by a distinguished group of authors who rigorously apply economics to the analysis of pollution control in societies undergoing rapid industrialization. As this pioneering volume demonstrates, citizens of rapidly developing Taiwan and Korea are willing to pay substantial amounts for the protection and improvement of air and water quality, and face potentially huge losses from global climate change. A number of the papers also point to some cost effective alternatives for helping to reduce global greenhouse gas emission. As this major book reveals, the make-up of Asian politico-economic systems has a direct impact on environmental policies, from benefit estimation to instrument choice. As the authors argue, policymakers and researchers in the Asia Pacific cannot draw on European and American methods, arguments and conclusions without considerable modification for regional conditions.

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This book explores the interaction between climate change and the agriculture sector. Agriculture is essential to the livelihood of people and nations, especially in the developing world; therefore, any impact on it will have significant economic, social, and political ramifications. Scholars from around the world and from various fields have been brought together to explore this important topic. The contributions found here analyze direct agronomic effects, the economic impacts on agriculture, agricultural impacts on the economy, agricultural mitigation, and farmer adaptation. The authors argue that climate change is likely to have an extensive impact on agriculture around the world through changes in temperature, precipitation, concentrations of carbon dioxide, and available water flows. This thorough and timely volume is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in exploring the impacts of climate change in arguably the most important sector of the world economy. Economists, agronomists, and climate modelers in academia and the public sector, policy analysts and development agency staff, and graduate/postgraduate students will find this remarkable volume a welcome addition to their collection.

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This unique book examines the problem of global warming from the perspective of Asian Pacific countries. The unprecedented economic and demographic growth over the past two decades has increased the importance of the Asian Pacific region. It has become both a very large source of greenhouse gases as well as an important site to measure climate change impacts. Complex economic tools including computable general equilibrium models, international input-output models and engineering-economic models are used to assess the baseline emission levels and abatement costs for the economies examined. All outcomes suggest that abatement is possible, but will be expensive. The studies also suggest that the more energy efficient the economy, the higher the costs of further abatement. The book reveals how Asian countries in the tropics are more likely to be harmed than those in the temperate zone. Alternative strategies to mitigate carbon emissions such as energy conservation, emission permit trading, carbon tax, and carbon sequestration are examined to tackle the difficult problem of establishing effective policy tools to control warming in the Asian Pacific and the globe. While no single author provides a complete answer to this complex problem, all authors provide vital information and new ideas with which to fashion workable international and regional policies.Global Warming and the Asian Pacific is likely to be read by scholars and researchers of Asian studies, environmental and resource economics, as well as policymakers and those specifically involved in global warming research and policy.

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