Social dimensions of fertility behavior and consumption patterns in the Anthropocene.

We consider two aspects of the human enterprise that profoundly affect the global environment: population and consumption. We show that fertility and consumption behavior harbor a class of externalities that have not been much noted in the literature. Both are driven in part by attitudes and preferences that are not egoistic but socially embedded; that is, each household's decisions are influenced by the decisions made by others. In a famous paper, Garrett Hardin [G. Hardin, Science 162, 1243-1248 (1968)] drew attention to overpopulation and concluded that the solution lay in people "abandoning the freedom to breed." That human attitudes and practices are socially embedded suggests that it is possible for people to reduce their fertility rates and consumption demands without experiencing a loss in wellbeing. We focus on fertility in sub-Saharan Africa and consumption in the rich world and argue that bottom-up social mechanisms rather than top-down government interventions are better placed to bring about those ecologically desirable changes.

Climate concern and policy acceptance before and after COVID-19.

It remains unclear how COVID-19 has affected public engagement with the climate crisis. According to the finite-pool-of-worry hypothesis, concern about climate change should have decreased after the pandemic, in turn reducing climate-policy acceptance. Here we test these and several other conjectures by using survey data from 1172 Spanish participants who responded before and after the first wave of COVID-19, allowing for both aggregate and within-person analyses. We find that on average climate concern has decreased, while acceptance of most climate policies has increased. At the individual-level, adverse health experiences are unrelated to these changes. The same holds for negative economic experiences, with the exception that unemployment is associated with reduced acceptance of some policies. Complementary to the finite-pool-of-worry test, we examine three additional pandemic-related issues. As we find, (1) higher climate concern and policy acceptance are associated with a belief that climate change contributed to the COVID-19 outbreak; (2) higher policy acceptance is associated with a positive opinion about how the government addressed the COVID-19 crisis; (3) citizens show favorable attitudes to a carbon tax with revenues used to compensate COVID-19-related expenditures. Overall, we conclude there is support for addressing the global climate crisis even during a global health crisis.

Environmental problem shifting from climate change mitigation: A mapping review.

Climate change mitigation will trigger major changes in human activity, energy systems, and material use, potentially shifting pressure from climate change to other environmental problems. We provide a comprehensive overview of such "environmental problem shifting" (EPS). While there is considerable research on this issue, studies are scattered across research fields and use a wide range of terms with blurred conceptual boundaries, such as trade-off, side effect, and spillover. We identify 506 relevant studies on EPS of which 311 are empirical, 47 are conceptual-theoretical, and 148 are synthetic studies or reviews of a particular mitigation option. A systematic mapping of the empirical studies reveals 128 distinct shifts from 22 categories of mitigation options to 10 environmental impacts. A comparison with the recent IPCC report indicates that EPS literature does not cover all mitigation options. Moreover, some studies systematically overestimate EPS by not accounting for the environmental benefits of reduced climate change. We propose to conceptually clarify the different ways of estimating EPS by distinguishing between gross, net, and relative shifting. Finally, the ubiquity of EPS calls for policy design which ensures climate change mitigation that minimizes unsustainability across multiple environmental dimensions. To achieve this, policymakers can regulate mitigation options-for example, in their choice of technology or location-and implement complementary environmental policies.

Prioritize carbon pricing over fossil-fuel subsidy reform.

While many climate activist groups enthusiastically advocate for the removal of fossil-fuel subsidies, we argue that this overstates both the climate effectiveness and political feasibility of such a strategy. Through synthesizing information from various global studies, we show that subsidies contribute to a relatively small portion of climate change and local externality problems, likely accounting for around 1%. We further argue that reform of fossil-fuel subsidies is hampered by various political and social factors, more so than the diffusion of carbon pricing. Based on these results, we argue that the far greater problem of unpriced externalities warrants a redirection or expansion of the enthusiasm for subsidy reform toward carbon pricing. This makes sense also as subsidy reform and carbon pricing essentially represent two sides of the same coin since both contribute to climate mitigation by raising fossil-fuel prices.

Respondent uncertainty in contingent valuation of preventing beach erosion: an analysis with a polychotomous choice question.

Respondent uncertainty is often considered as one of the main limitations of stated preference methods, which are nowadays being widely used for valuing environmental goods and services. This article examines the effect of respondent uncertainty on welfare estimates by applying the contingent valuation method. This is done in the context of beach protection against erosion. Respondent certainty levels are elicited using a five-category polychotomous choice question. Two different uncertainty calibration techniques are tested, namely one that treats uncertain responses as missing and another in which uncertain 'yes' responses are recoded as 'no' responses. We found no evidence that the former technique offers any gains over the conventional model assuming certainty. The latter calibration technique systematically reduces welfare estimates. The reduction is statistically significant only when the most certain 'yes' responses are recoded as 'no' responses. The article further identifies determinants of respondent uncertainty. Finally, it explores how real market experience affects respondent uncertainty.