Around You
Every Day is Earth Day: Evidence on the Long-term Impact of Environmental Voluntarism
Daniel Hungerman & Vivek Moorthy
NBER Working Paper, April 2020
Abstract:
We use variation in weather to study the long-term effects of the original Earth Day on attitudes, environmental outcomes, and children's health. Unusually bad weather in a community on April 22, 1970, is associated 10 to 20 years later with weaker support for the environment, particularly among those who were school-aged in 1970. Bad weather on Earth Day is also associated with higher levels of carbon monoxide in the air and greater risk of congenital abnormalities in infants born in the following decades. These results indicate a long-lasting and localized effect of Earth Day, and more generally demonstrate the enduring value of voluntary environmental action.
The Spillover Effects of Pollution: How Exposure to Lead Affects Everyone in the Classroom
Ludovica Gazze, Claudia Persico & Sandra Spirovska
University of Chicago Working Paper, April 2020
Abstract:
Evidence shows that lead-exposed children are more disruptive and have lower achievement. However, we know less about how lead-exposed children affect the learning environment of their classroom peers. We estimate these spillover effects using new data on children's blood lead levels (BLLs) matched to all education data in North Carolina. We compare siblings who attend the same school, but whose school-grade cohorts differ in the proportion of children with elevated BLLs. We find that having more lead-exposed peers is associated with lower test scores and graduation rates, increased suspensions and dropping out of school, and a decrease in college intentions.
When good fences aren’t enough: The impact of neighboring air pollution on infant health
Philip DeCicca & Natalie Malak
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) mandated the reduction of power plant emissions in the eastern United States. Starting in March 2005, this policy greatly reduced exposure to a specific form of pollution — fine particulate matter — in neighboring downwind counties. Using data from the 1995 to 2013 waves of the U.S. Natality Detail Files, we investigate the impact of this reduced exposure on birth outcomes including premature birth, birth weight status and infant mortality. Our most consistent finding is that the CAIR reduced premature birth, particularly among women aged thirty-five and older, those who experienced clinically-designated “risky” pregnancies, and those who gave birth to female newborns. We also find a substantial reduction in infant mortality for newborns whose mothers experienced “risky” pregnancies. Taken together, our findings suggest that policy-induced reductions in exposure to fine particulate matter may lead to improved birth outcomes among those mothers and newborns most at risk.
Inconsistent allocations of harms versus benefits may exacerbate environmental inequality
Tamar Makov, George Newman & Gal Zauberman
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 21 April 2020, Pages 8820-8824
Abstract:
We report five studies that examine preferences for the allocation of environmental harms and benefits. In all studies, participants were presented with scenarios in which an existing environmental inequality between two otherwise similar communities could either be decreased or increased through various allocation decisions. Our results demonstrate that despite well-established preferences toward equal outcomes, people express weaker preferences for options that increase equality when considering the allocation of environmental harms (e.g., building new polluting facilities) than when considering the allocation of environmental benefits (e.g., applying pollution-reducing technologies). We argue that this effect emerges from fairness considerations rooted in a psychological incompatibility between the allocation of harms, which is seen as an inherently unfair action, and equality, which is a basic fairness principle. Since the allocation of harms is an inevitable part of operations of both governments and businesses, our results suggest that where possible, parties interested in increasing environmental equality may benefit from framing such proposals as bestowing relative benefits instead of imposing relative harms.
Disparities in Distribution of Particulate Matter Emissions from US Coal-Fired Power Plants by Race and Poverty Status After Accounting for Reductions in Operations Between 2015 and 2017
Jennifer Richmond-Bryant et al.
American Journal of Public Health, May 2020, Pages 655-661
Objectives: To investigate potential changes in burdens from coal-fired electricity-generating units (EGUcfs) that emit fine particulate matter (PM2.5, defined as matter with a nominal mean aerodynamic diameter of ≤ 2.5 µm) among racial/ethnic and economic groups after reduction of operations in 92 US EGUcfs.
Methods: PM2.5 burdens calculated for EGUs listed in the 2008, 2011, and 2014 National Emissions Inventory were recalculated for 2017 after omitting emissions from 92 EGUcfs. The combined influence of race/ethnicity and poverty on burden estimates was characterized.
Results: Omission of 92 EGUcfs decreased PM2.5 burdens attributable to EGUs by 8.6% for the entire population and to varying degrees for every population subgroup. Although the burden decreased across all subgroups, the decline was not equitable. After omission of the 92 EGUcfs, burdens were highest for the below-poverty and non-White subgroups. Proportional disparities between White and non-White subgroups increased. In our combined analysis, the burden was highest for the non-White–high-poverty subgroup.
Coal-exit health and environmental damage reductions outweigh economic impacts
Sebastian Rauner et al.
Nature Climate Change, April 2020, Pages 308–312
Abstract:
Cheap and abundant coal fuelled the industrialization of Europe, North America and Asia. However, the price tag on coal has never reflected the external cost to society; coal combustion produces more than a third of today’s global CO2 emissions and is a major contributor to local adverse effects on the environment and public health, such as biodiversity loss and respiratory diseases. Here, we show that phasing out coal yields substantial local environmental and health benefits that outweigh the direct policy costs due to shortening of the energy supply. Phasing out coal is thus a no-regret strategy for most world regions, even when only accounting for domestic effects and neglecting the global benefits from slowing climate change. Our results suggest that these domestic effects potentially eliminate much of the free-rider problem caused by the discrepancy between the national burden of decarbonization costs and the internationally shared benefits of climate change impact mitigation. This, combined with the profound effect of closing around half of the global CO2 emissions gap towards the 2 °C target, makes coal phase-out policies attractive candidates for the iterative strengthening of the nationally determined contributions pledged by the countries under the Paris Agreement.
Environmental Preferences and Technological Choices: Is Market Competition Clean or Dirty?
Philippe Aghion et al.
NBER Working Paper, April 2020
Abstract:
This paper investigates the joint effect of consumers' environmental concerns and product-market competition on firms' decisions whether to innovate “clean” or “dirty”. We first develop a step-by-step innovation model to capture the basic intuition that socially responsible consumers induce firms to escape competition by pursuing greener innovations. To test and quantify the theory, we bring together patent data, survey data on environmental values, and competition measures. Using a panel of 8,562 firms from the automobile sector that patented in 42 countries between 1998 and 2012, we indeed find that greater exposure to environmental attitudes has a significant positive effect on the probability for a firm to innovate in the clean direction, and all the more so the higher the degree of product market competition. Results suggest that the combination of historically realistic increases in prosocial attitudes and product market competition can have the same effect on green innovation as major increase in fuel prices.
Environmentalism, Stimulus, and Inequality Reduction Through Industrial Policy: Did Cash for Clunkers Achieve the Trifecta?
Keaton Miller, Wesley Wilson & Nicholas Wood
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
The 2009 American Cash for Clunkers program, which subsidized consumers who scrapped old vehicles and purchased new vehicles, was promoted by appealing to multiple constituencies. We evaluate the policy and alternatives according to its stated goals: emissions reductions, economic stimulus, and reducing inequality. We calibrate a dynamic partial equilibrium portfolio model to match consumer expenditure data from 1998 to 2011 focusing on heterogeneity across cars and trucks. We find the program generated $0.17 in environmental benefits, $0.28 in consumer surplus, and $0.31 in net discounted additional spending per subsidy dollar. Since subsidies largely went to middle‐income infra‐marginal consumers, the program exacerbated consumption inequality. We evaluate alternative policy designs and find no policy which simultaneously improves all outcomes.
Adverse Cardiovascular Effects of Traffic Noise with a Focus on Nighttime Noise and the New WHO Noise Guidelines
Thomas Münzel et al.
Annual Review of Public Health, 2020, Pages 309-328
Abstract:
Exposure to traffic noise is associated with stress and sleep disturbances. The World Health Organization (WHO) recently concluded that road traffic noise increases the risk for ischemic heart disease and potentially other cardiometabolic diseases, including stroke, obesity, and diabetes. The WHO report focused on whole-day noise exposure, but new epidemiological and translational field noise studies indicate that nighttime noise, in particular, is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) through increased levels of stress hormones and vascular oxidative stress, leading to endothelial dysfunction and subsequent development of various CVDs. Novel experimental studies found noise to be associated with oxidative stress–induced vascular and brain damage, mediated by activation of the NADPH oxidase, uncoupling of endothelial and neuronal nitric oxide synthase, and vascular/brain infiltration with inflammatory cells. Noise-induced pathophysiology was more pronounced in response to nighttime as compared with daytime noise. This review focuses on the consequences of nighttime noise.
Is Fish Brain Food or Brain Poison? Sea Surface Temperature, Methyl-mercury and Child Cognitive Development
Mark Rosenzweig & Rafael Santos Villagran
NBER Working Paper, April 2020
Abstract:
We exploit variation in the composition of local fish catches around the time of birth using administrative and census data on adult cognitive test scores, schooling attainment, and occupation among coastal populations in Colombia to estimate the causal effects of early-life consumption of methylmercury (MeHg) and DHA, elements contained in fish, on cognitive development. Using an IV strategy based on an equilibrium model of fish supply that exploits time-series variation in oceanic SST anomalies on both coasts of Colombia from 1950 to 2014 as instruments, we find that net of cohort and municipality fixed effects increases in high-(low-)MeHg fish catches around a cohort’s birth negatively (positively) affect the cohort’s verbal and math test scores upon exiting high school and their likelihood of continuing their schooling, while increasing (decreasing) the likelihood the cohort is disproportionally represented in manual-labor occupations.
Wisdom of stakeholder crowds in complex social–ecological systems
Payam Aminpour et al.
Nature Sustainability, March 2020, Pages 191–199
Abstract:
Sustainable management of natural resources requires adequate scientific knowledge about complex relationships between human and natural systems. Such understanding is difficult to achieve in many contexts due to data scarcity and knowledge limitations. We explore the potential of harnessing the collective intelligence of resource stakeholders to overcome this challenge. Using a fisheries example, we show that by aggregating the system knowledge held by stakeholders through graphical mental models, a crowd of diverse resource users produces a system model of social–ecological relationships that is comparable to the best scientific understanding. We show that the averaged model from a crowd of diverse resource users outperforms those of more homogeneous groups. Importantly, however, we find that the averaged model from a larger sample of individuals can perform worse than one constructed from a smaller sample. However, when averaging mental models within stakeholder-specific subgroups and subsequently aggregating across subgroup models, the effect is reversed. Our work identifies an inexpensive, yet robust way to develop scientific understanding of complex social–ecological systems by leveraging the collective wisdom of non-scientist stakeholders.
Using yeast to sustainably remediate and extract heavy metals from waste waters
George Sun, Erin Reynolds & Angela Belcher
Nature Sustainability, April 2020, Pages 303–311
Abstract:
Our demand for electronic goods and fossil fuels has challenged our ecosystem with contaminating amounts of heavy metals, causing numerous water sources to become polluted. To counter heavy-metal waste, industry has relied on a family of physicochemical processes, with chemical precipitation being one of the most commonly used. However, the disadvantages of chemical precipitation are vast, including the generation of secondary waste, technical handling of chemicals and need for complex infrastructures. To circumvent these limitations, biological processes to naturally manage waste have been sought. Here, we show that yeast can act as a biological alternative to traditional chemical precipitation by controlling naturally occurring production of hydrogen sulfide (H2S). Sulfide production was harnessed by controlling the sulfate assimilation pathway, where strategic knockouts and culture conditions generated H2S from 0 to over 1,000 ppm (~30 mM). These sulfide-producing yeasts were able to remove mercury, lead and copper from real-world samples taken from the Athabasca oil sands. More so, yeast surface display of biomineralization peptides helped control for size distribution and crystallinity of precipitated metal sulfide nanoparticles. Altogether, this yeast-based platform not only removes heavy metals but also offers a platform for metal re-extraction through precipitation of metal sulfide nanoparticles.