Each week, I review the papers, studies, reports, and briefings posted over at the RFF Library Blog.
Evaluating Taboo Trade-offs in Ecosystems Services and Human Well-being
Managing ecosystems for multiple ecosystem services and balancing the well-being of diverse stakeholders involves different kinds of trade-offs. Often trade-offs involve noneconomic and difficult-to-evaluate values, such as cultural identity, employment, the well-being of poor people, or particular species or ecosystem structures. Although trade-offs need to be considered for successful environmental management, they are often overlooked in favor of win-wins. Management and policy decisions demand approaches that can explicitly acknowledge and evaluate diverse trade-offs. We identified a diversity of apparent trade-offs in a small-scale tropical fishery when ecological simulations were integrated with participatory assessments of social–ecological system structure and stakeholders’ well-being. Despite an apparent win-win between conservation and profitability at the aggregate scale, food production, employment, and well-being of marginalized stakeholders were differentially influenced by management decisions leading to trade-offs. - via Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences / by Tim M. Daw, eta l.
European Ecosystem Assessment — Concept, Data, and Implementation
[From Summary] …Europe is becoming greener (Fuchs et al., 2014) but, at the same time, losing biodiversity. At least one-out-of-three species in Europe is threatened with extinction (IUCN, 2011a-d). Many ecosystems are pushed towards the provision of one service — mainly food production — at the cost of the other services they usually provide. The EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 aims towards ‘healthy’ ecosystems that are rich in biodiversity and provide multiple services for human well-being… - via European Environment Agency
Possible Artifacts of Data Biases in the Recent Global Surface Warming Hiatus: NOAA Study
Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.” Here we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a “slowdown” in the increase of global surface temperature. - via Science (June 4, 2015; DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa5632) / by Thomas R. Karl, et al.
Investing in a Time of Climate Change: 2015 Study
[From a Climate Wire article by Benjamin Hulac, sub req’d] …The oil and utility sectors will become the second- and third-worst performing sectors 35 years out, behind coal, and other businesses based on fossil fuels will suffer, such as raw material manufacturers, the report projects. Oil and power company investors will watch their average annual returns north of 6 percent drop to 2.5 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively, each year. - via Mercer
Putting a Price on Carbon: A Handbook for U.S. Policymakers
[Green Biz] WRI’s new paper, Putting a Price on Carbon: A Handbook for U.S. Policymakers, is the first in a series examining the concept of making emitters pay for the carbon pollution they produce. As the title suggests, the Handbook sets out the lay of the land around the different carbon-pricing models—such as cap-and-trade and carbon taxes—and can be used as a “how-to” guide for what to consider when designing a carbon-pricing policy. - via World Resources Institute / by Kevin Kennedy, Michael Obeiter and Noah Kaufman
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