ALYSON E. GROVE/Arizona Daily Wildcat J.E. deSteiguer, a professor of renewable and natural resources, lectures about "Socio-Economic Costs of Air Pollution and Climate change" yesterday afternoon in the Family and Consumer Resources building. Desteiguer was the first to speak in a new lecture series being sponsored by the UA's Institute for the Study of Planet Earth.

Economic costs factor into environmental protection

Long-term costs and benefits that go into environmental protection policies, but they remain a vital part of policy-making, a UA economist said at a seminar yesterday.

"Economic analysis of environmental issues is a controversial topic," said J.E. deSteiguer, a University of Arizona professor in the School of Renewable and Natural Resources. "People think the environment is too dear to put a value on."

"But economists are asked to help construct policies that represent the best use of society's limited resources."

These policies include the Kyoto Protocol, which was introduced in 1997 to reduce air pollution by requiring industrialized countries to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions.

Air pollution, which can lead to secondary types of pollution like ozone damage, smog and acid rain, can have harmful effects on human health, as well as on animals, vegetation and infrastructure.

These damages are translated into economic "costs" which economists use to analyze policy so that lawmakers can "design more economically efficient programs," deSteiguer said.

An analysis of the Kyoto Protocol, for example, led the U.S. government not to accept its terms.

Often, deSteiguer said, there is a large discrepancy of opinion among the general public, environmentalists and economists on the necessity to protect the environment and the funds that should be allocated for it.

While environmentalists typically see global climate change as "a threat to ecology and human existence," polls of the general public "show concern but not enough to rank high on the public agenda," he said.

"If the public perceives that the threat is not real and that the cost is too high, then they are not interested in supporting it. Global climate change is (a threat) like that."

The Institute for the Study of Planet Earth is aiming to make the public aware of these types of long-term problems with an interdisciplinary approach.

"We want to get people thinking on how one area affects another," said ISPE deputy director Bill Sprigg. It's hard for people to break out of their focused, narrow areas to understand the issues. We want everyone to appreciate their dependencies (on other disciplines)."

DeSteiguer's talk kicked off ISPE's series of lectures on global change implications, which will be held every Monday from 3:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. in the Family and Consumer Sciences building, Room 101.