美国的野火烟雾

Jacob Gellman and Matthew Wibbenmeyer About the Authors Jacob Gellmanis a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Economics at theUniversity of Alaska Anchorage. His research focuses on the economics of naturaldisasters, climate adaptation, and public lands. Some current projects investigatewelfare damages of wildfire smoke for outdoor recreation, adaptation to climatechange and natural disasters in homeowners insurance markets, and the effect ofnatural disaster forecasts and alerts on evacuations. Gellman holds a PhD from theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara. As a researcher at the Earth Research Institutein Santa Barbara, he worked on interdisciplinary wildfire issues with economists,ecologists, meteorologists, and other natural scientists. Previously, Gellman worked asan energy economics consultant, where he advised utilities and tribes on energydecisions and produced expert witness testimony for entities such as the USDepartment of Justice and the Illinois Attorney General. Matthew Wibbenmeyeris a fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF). His researchstudies climate impacts and mitigation within the US land sector, with a specialemphasis on wildfire impacts and management. US wildfire activity has accelerated inrecent years, leading to increases in property damages, carbon emissions, and healthimpacts due to smoke. Wibbenmeyer’s research studies the impacts of these changesfor communities, how these impacts are distributed, and how management choicesaffect the distribution of impacts. Alongside his work on wildfire, Wibbenmeyer isinvestigating the role of the US land sector in mitigating climate change, and howpolicy toward land sector choices may influence the United States' ability to meetclimate goals. About RFF Resources for the Future (RFF) is an independent, nonprofit research institution inWashington, DC. Its mission is to improve environmental, energy, and natural resourcedecisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement. RFF iscommitted to being the most widely trusted source of research insights and policysolutions leading to a healthy environment and a thriving economy. Working papers are research materials circulated by their authors for purposes ofinformation and discussion. They have not necessarily undergone formal peer review.The views expressed here are those of the individual authors and may differ fromthose of other RFF experts, its officers, or its directors. Sharing Our Work Our work is available for sharing and adaptation under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. You can copy andredistribute our material in any medium or format; you must give appropriate credit,provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made, and you may notapply additional restrictions. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in anyway that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not use thematerial for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material,you may not distribute the modified material. For more information, visithttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Abstract As large wildfires grow more frequent, the United States is seeing increasing impactsfrom smoke. Wildfire smoke frequently causes particulate matter pollution to exceedfederal standards, and these smoke impacts are expected to grow over the century asthe climate warms. Drawing from the economics and social science literature, thispaper argues that increasing wildfire smoke pollution is a serious threat to health, theeconomy, and human well-being. The paper identifies areas in which to prioritizepolicy attention, such as increasing funding for land management activities andleveraging air quality regulations to incentivize wildfire hazard mitigation. Contents 1. Introduction12. Impacts of Wildfire Smoke22.1. Health22.2. Welfare32.3. Distributional Impacts53. Wildfire Smoke Trends64. Policy Responses85. Conclusions10References11 1. Introduction Wildfire activity is increasing globally (Jolly et al. 2015; Senande-Rivera et al. 2022),driven by increases in aridity and, in some regions, an overabundance of fire-readyfuels (Marlon et al. 2012). Recently in the United States, fires have produced severaldeadly and destructive disasters, including those in Paradise, California, in 2018 andLahaina, Hawaii, in 2023. Despite these notable impacts, there is growing evidencethat the overall damages of wildfire smoke emissions may be at least as large as thedirect damages from wildfires (Burke et al. 2023; Wang et al. 2021). As fire consumes biomass, it releases a variety of pollutants, including carbon dioxide,carbon monoxide, methane, volatile organic compounds, nitrous oxide, nitrogenoxides, and particulate matter. Of these, fine particulate matter less than 2.5 micronsin diameter (PM2.5) accounts for the third-largest share of emissions, by mass, aftercarbon dioxide and carbon monoxide (Urbans