Course:ECON371/UBCO2011WT1/GROUP2/Article 5 : Polar Bears Die as Ice Caps Melt

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/18/us-climate-polarbears-idUSTRE76H4ZG20110718

Summary

The endangered polar bears are dying rapidly due to increased temperatures in the artic melting the ice caps. Increased green house gas emissions are resulting in a global warming increasing the distance between ice caps making polar bears have to swim great distances to find food and habitat. This is mainly a problem for polar bear cubs, with a 45% mortality rate for these long swims.

Analysis

On an economic perspective, this article mainly shows an indirect external cost of greenhouse gas. Because of the greenhouse gas, ice caps are melting faster, which causes the polar bears to swim further to reach a suitable habitat. In doing so, young cubs are more likely to die in such process.

Determining the damage caused by this decrease in habitat is very difficult to do. The loss of polar bears has no significant economical use. Due to this lack of monetary value it is hard to approve and generate programs to protect the bears and analyze a cost effective approach. The only way to value polar bears is through the use of contingent valuation. Asking people how much they are willing to pay to save the species of polar bears is most likely going to be an inaccurate number, being higher than the actual. The costs of reducing green house gas emissions can be slightly easier to measure, and it is currently being tracked because of the multiple serious problems caused by their contributions to global warming and decreasing air quality. The cost benefit curve of this could be aggregated with all of the positive effects of reducing emissions creating a much larger incentive to reduce emissions on a greater scale.

Economically biodiversity is a challenging concept and brings objection to the concept of adding monetary values to everything to determine its worth. Many things are similar to biodiversity in the fact that they are difficult to add a monetary value to.

The arctic caps and the dying polar bears are directly related to Canada considering Canada contains most of the polar bears habitat. This would seem to imply that Canada should be especially concerned with reducing green house gas emissions and impose harsh regulations. This is difficult to do in Canada because of the power of each individual province and the federal governments inability to provide nationwide regulations. This results in an inability to even establish protected lands for the polar bears or slack guidelines to mildly reduce the emissions of green house gases.

In this case, greenhouse gas is a burden for most cold climate countries. Much of its wildlife habitats will be endangered yet the share of the cost for greenhouse gas remains an issue. Since the ones who are responsible for emissions are not easy to calculate. Not to mention paying additional cost is something more companies or people would want to avoid. Therefore, if one was to charge another for greenhouse gas emission, people will have an incentive to lie, much like what most companies are currently doing.

Prof's Comments

It is important to recognize that while Canada may have the majority of the global land habitat for polar bears, we cannot on our own have much impact on climate change. Thus, doing anything requires international cooperation, which is very difficult to do. Everyone wants to free ride on the contributions other nations make, and as a result, nobody does as much abatement as they should.

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