Air Pollution Risks The Causality Loop of Human Activity and its Consequences Brandon Gustafson.
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Air Pollution RisksThe Causality Loop of Human Activity
and its Consequences
Brandon Gustafson
Causality Loop
• Human activity and its associated risks operate in a loop• Populations engage in activities that affect their welfare• These activities spur a chain of events that leads to the
associated risk of these activities• These risks work to further effect welfare• From here actions are taken and the cycle repeats• This presentation will detail the steps and provide an
example• Using the example we will estimate ways to reduce the
risks• Next we will put our example in perspective • Finally we offer some commentary and some analysis
Causality Loop
General Description
• Given Population• Participates in
activities which increase welfare
• Goods and Services are in demand to provide for these activities
• Goods and services require materials
General Description
• Materials flow causes pollution of varying concentrations
• Pollutants at varying concentrations have varying effects
• Each effect posses different risks to humans
General Description
• These risks in turn effect our welfare
• Our welfare being effected causes us to develop policy for action
• These actions lead to a changes in our activity
Quantification of Risk
Quantification of Risk
• Start with a given population
• Engages in “a” activities person
• Which requires “g” goods and services per activity
• In turn requires “m” materials per good and service required
Quantification of Risk
• The use of materials produces pollution with concentration “c” per mass flow of material
• The concentration level has effect “e” per concentrate
• Which produces risk “r” per effect
Quantification of Risk
• The coefficients are multiplied to find the overall risk
• This effects welfare and action is taken
• To reduce risk action can be taken at any node affecting the coefficient associated with it and thus the overall equation
Key Features
• The entire process functions in a loop
• Each action is connected to overall welfare
• Overall welfare affects future action
• Ideally an equilibrium is reached where utility is maximized while risk is minimized
Example
• People like to consume electricity
• They use it to increase their personal utility or welfare everyday
• To meet the demands power companies have to generate enough electricity
California Electricity
• 33.9 Million people used 78 TWh of electricity residentially in the year 2000
• 61.9 kWh per dollar ($) GSP• Or, 2300 kWh per person
Brown, Richard E. and Jonathon G. Koomey, “Electricity Use in California: Past Trends and Present Usage Patterns” May 2002 UC-Berkley
California Pollution• Raw materials such as coal and other fossil fuels
flow to power production plants• Pollution is produced• Pollution in units of pounds per kWh is listed
below for 8 major pollutantsCO2
lbs/kWh
NOx
lbs/kWh
SO2
lbs/kWh
Hg
lbs/kWh
PM10
lbs/kWh
PM2.5
lbs/kWh
VOC
lbs/kWh
CO
lbs/kWh
California 0.633 0.000522 .000173 4.21x10-11 0.000006 0.000008 0.000026 0.000175
Leonardo Academy Inc. “Emission Factors and Energy Prices for the Cleaner Greener Environmental Program” January 2003
Pollution Density
• Table depicts the amount of pollution per person• However, this is only accounting for residential
use, which is typically the end use anyway
CO2
lbs/person
NOx
lbs/person
SO2
lbs/person
Hg
lbs/person
PM10
lbs/person
PM2.5
lbs/person
VOC
lbs/person
CO
lbs/person
California 1456.5 1.2 0.398 9.7x10-8 0.021 0.018 0.06 0.403
Leonardo Academy Inc. “Emission Factors and Energy Prices for the Cleaner Greener Environmental Program” January 2003
California Effects
• The effects of these pollutants are mild and severe
• Respiratory problems to simply impaired visibility
• Especially the young, the old, and the asthmatic
California Risks
• The risk depends on the person
• Each year 50,000 people are estimated to have died from air pollution
• Those with previous lung conditions are at the greatest risk
• Although, we are all at elevated risk
Welfare to Action
• Reduced health and death reduce welfare
• Reduced welfare spurs action
• Governmental agencies set pollution limits
• California Air Resources Board website goes online
Types of Actions
• To increase welfare and/or reduce risk
• Reducing the population would reduce risk
• Reducing activity will decrease risk but may also decrease welfare
• Use less materials i.e. be more efficient
• Output lower concentrations of pollutants
• Output pollutants that have less effect and associated risk
Actions and the Causality Coefficients
• At each node actions can be taken to reduce the overall risk
• Population is difficult to change but people can change their actions
Action Example
• People can turn their lights off sooner in the day and use 5% less electricity
• Engineers can improve transmissions lines and light bulb efficiency so that each activity requires 5% fewer kWh
Action Example
• Engineers can increase factory efficiency by 5%, using less raw materials to produce each kWh
• Factories can use different fuels that have 5% less pollutants in terms of concentration
Action Example
• Care can be taken in selecting fuels and combustion techniques so that the effect of any pollutants emitted is reduced by 5%
• Communities can plan where to build factories and people can be smart about when they conduct certain activities reducing the risk by 5%
Action Example
• These simple reductions lead to an overall decrease of 26.5% of what it otherwise would be
• 0.95a*0.95g*0.95m*0.95c*0.95e*0.95r*P = 0.735(a*g*m*c*e*r*P) => 26.5% reduction
World Perspective
• Although different units, the comparison is striking
City SO2
Micrograms per cu. m
Population
Thousands
Los Angeles 9 12, 410
Tehran 209 6, 836
Rio de Janeiro 129 10, 181
http://www.worldbank.org/nipr/wdi98/table3.12.pdf
WHO Healthy Cities Air Management Information System and the World Resources Institute 1996
Comments and Analysis
• Each action is made through a single decision
• However, the consequences to these actions are borne by all
• This is known as an externality and subsequently is a market failure
• People are not aware of the full cost of conducting their action and therein lies the problem
• To remedy this problem the community can educate but this provides little incentive
• In truth, education combined with externality taxation is best
• Improvement can be made at any node
• However, factory efficiency is pretty good and marginal improvements are small
• The big improvements need to come from efficiency of human activity
• More activity does not always mean better welfare but it does mean greater risk
• Also in the long run a shift to a cleaner energy source is a must
Summary
• The Causation Loop of Human Activity is a cycle• Human welfare is adjusted up and down
respectively by increased human activity which leads to increased risk
• The cycle was explained and an example was presented to demonstrate the cycle
• A hypothetical experiment estimated the ways to reduce the overall risk of activity
• After analyzing a US city, the numbers were put into perspective with the rest of the world
• Finally comments and analysis were offered
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