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emissions</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Arial"><i>Ecological Economics</i> Volume 116, August
2015, Pages 261-269</font></div>
<div><font
face="Arial">doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.04.020</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">The cost of climate change: Ecosystem services
and wildland fires</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Christine Lee, , Claire Schlemme, Jessica
Murray, Robert Unsworth</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Highlights</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">*Climate change is likely to increase
wildland fire frequency and severity.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">*Greenhouse gas mitigation can reduce the
impacts of climate change.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">*Quantitative analysis of the effect of
wildfire on ecosystem services is limited.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">*We use habitat equivalency analysis to
monetize impacts of climate change-induced wildland fire on ecosystem
services.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">*Ecosystem service benefits of GHG
mitigation in the contiguous U.S. are substantial.</font><br>
<font face="Arial"></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Abstract [ Open Access]</font></div>
<div><font
face="Arial"
>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915002050</font
></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Little research has focused on the economic
impact associated with climate-change induced wildland fire on natural
ecosystems and the goods and services they provide. We examine changes
in wildland fire patterns based on the U.S. Forest Service's MC1
dynamic global vegetation model from 2013 to 2115 under two
pre-defined scenarios: a reference (i.e., business-as-usual) and a
greenhouse gas mitigation policy scenario. We construct a habitat
equivalency model under which fuels management activities, actions
commonly undertaken to reduce the frequency and/or severity of
wildland fire, are used to compensate for climate change-induced
losses in ecosystem services on conservation lands in the contiguous
U.S. resulting from wildland fire. The benefit of the greenhouse gas
mitigation policy is equal to the difference in fuels management costs
between the reference and policy scenarios. Results suggest present
value ecosystem service benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation on the
average of $3.5 billion (2005 dollars, assuming a three percent
discount rate). Our analysis highlights the importance of considering
loss of ecosystem services when evaluating the impacts of alternative
greenhouse gas mitigation policies.</font></div>
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"A new area of study is the field that some of us are beginning
to call<i> social traps.</i> The term refers to situations in society
that contain traps formally like a fish trap, where men or whole
societies get themselves started in some direction or some set of
relationships that later prove to be unpleasant or lethal and that
they see no easy way to back out of or to avoid."<br>
<br>
John Platt. Social Traps.<i> American Psychologist</i>, August
1973<br>
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"Transitions between regimes with radically different properties
are ubiquitous in nature. Such transitions can occur either smoothly
or in an abrupt and catastrophic fashion. Important examples of the
latter can be found in ecology, climate sciences, and economics, to
name a few, where regime shifts have catastrophic consequences that
are mostly irreversible."<br>
<br>
Paula Villa Martín, Juan A. Bonachel, Simon A. Levin, and Miguel A.
Muñoz. Eluding catastrophic shifts.<i> PNAS Early Edition</i>
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1414708112</font><br>
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