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Natural Resource Economics offers original research in a multitude of environmental issues. Here you'll find synopses and links to full research reports.
Natural Resource Economics offers original research in a multitude of environmental issues. Here you'll find synopses and links to full research reports.
May 7, 2025
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Multiple New Warnings: There's Economic Catastrophe Ahead.
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Multiple New Warnings: There's Economic Catastrophe Ahead.
Survey results show most Oregonians believe climate change will not seriously harm them. Until recently, economic studies of climate change generally supported this view, claiming that climate change will have only minor to moderate impacts on the economy. In recent weeks, though, several highly respected institutions have turned things upside down by demonstrating that climate pollutants already in the atmosphere are impeding economic growth and, unless greenhouse-gas emissions are curbed quickly, the burden of climate change will induce permanent economic recession, with catastrophic impacts on jobs and incomes and standard of living. This Issue Brief summarizes this new research, to help Oregonians evaluate the warnings and risks for themselves.
February 19, 2025
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Economic Costs from Climate Change Probably Will Get Worse. Much Worse.
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Economic Costs from Climate Change Probably Will Get Worse. Much Worse.
Previous Issue Briefs have shown that climate change already harms the people, places, and things Oregonians love. This Issue Brief summarizes recent research from scientists, economists, and actuaries that shows these harms—and the economic costs they impose on Oregonians—probably will soon get worse. Much worse.
January 18, 2025
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Economic Costs from Impacts of Climate Change on Oregon's Children
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Economic Costs from Impacts of Climate Change on Oregon's Children
This report describes evidence that shows climate change harms Oregon's children by increasing their risk of illness, disability, and death, by increasing the probability that, as they become adults, they will experience lower incomes and higher living costs, and by increasing anxiety and fear about their future. Insufficient data currently exist to describe other harms in detail or to estimate the direct health-related costs for today's children. But, recent research shows some expected lifetime costs for a child born today could total $1 million absent catastrophic impacts from climate change. If current trends are not reined-in, however, global GDP could fall by 50%, with devastating effects on the future prosperity of today's children.
February 13, 2025
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Climate Change Kills Oregonians, Jobs, and Incomes. It Is Not a Hoax
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Climate Change Kills Oregonians, Jobs, and Incomes. It Is Not a Hoax
This report describes evidence that shows treating climate change as a hoax, rather than rolling it back, will probably kill thousands of Oregonians and impose deep cuts to jobs and incomes. The update for February 13 clarifies language and adds descriptions of the climate crisis from a February, 2025, report by the German Federal Intelligence Service.
January 13, 2025
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Economic Costs to Oregon Households from Climate-Related Deaths
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Economic Costs to Oregon Households from Climate-Related Deaths
This report describes evidence that shows exposure to wildfire smoke has resulted in the death of 411 Oregonians per year, on average, over the past decade, and the 2021 heatwave resulted in the death of about 350 Oregonians, with economic costs, respectively, of $5.4 billion and $4.6 billion. Averaged over all Oregon households, the costs are $3,200 per household per year, on average, for wildfire-smoke-related deaths, and $2,700 per household for the deaths from the 2021 heatwave. Substantial evidence indicates both types of costs will be higher in the future.
Update: January 19, 2023.
January 10, 2025
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Economic Costs to Oregon Households from Exposure to Wildfire Smoke
Climate-Economics Issue Brief: Economic Costs to Oregon Households from Exposure to Wildfire Smoke
This report describes the economic costs that Oregon’s households incur from exposure to wildfire smoke, with a focus on data for 2023.
April 2018
This report, prepared for Environment Now, provides information rural communities in forested regions can use to assess and compare the potential impacts on jobs of two general strategies for improving their wildfire safety. The forest-altering strategy entails logging/thinning of the forest to alter the behavior of wildfires before they come near a community. The defensible-space strategy directly protects buildings from igniting from wildfires by trimming vegetation within 200 feet of the buildings and modifying the buildings, e.g., by replacing shingle roofs with fire-safe materials. The analysis compares the potential jobs from spending $1 million on each strategy and finds the number of jobs associated with the defensible-space strategy outnumbers those associated with forest-altering approach by more than 2-to-1.
July 28, 2016
The sale of timber from federal and state lands in western Oregon declined in the 1990s in large part because of resistance to below-cost timber sales, in which sale revenues didn't cover the costs that logging imposed directly on taxpayers and indirectly on non-timber sectors of the economy. Using peer-reviewed research and data recently developed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), this study shows that today's below-cost timber sales are far more severe than those of the 1990s.
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