Economics of Resource Use paper

Climate Change Proposal

Problem statement: Climate change is something horrible that is affecting every part of the world. It just so happens to be that Alaska is having a difficult time with climate change, having about double an increase in temperature than any part of the U.S. The average change in the past 10 decades has been of about 3.0°F, and although it doesn't seem like much, it is affecting the ecosystem and everything that lives in it. This is important because salmon is a fish that needs cold temperatures to live in and this increase in Alaskan temperature is threatening their existence. Below is a graph of Alaska’s mean annual temperature since 1949.

This is something very important because salmon and other marine life count for about 85% of fishing dollars in Alaska.

This is being addressed in Alaska by having a Alaska Climate Leadership Team in which they plan to do as much as they can to work on climate change in Alaska like for example they plan in being a world leader in renewable sources of energy. Also they point out that they are going to look at this matter from the Alaskan viewpoint, not as a partisan political issue.

For the moment there are no regulations for this, although this could become a bigger problem in the future, that might turn to a larger concern for the U.S. This might call for government intervention in the future.

I plan to present this information in the form of a research paper of about 5-7 pages of length. I plan to research as much as I can about salmon in Alaska and find out exactly how this is affecting them and just how much this will affect Alaska as well as the rest of the U.S in the economic point of view.

Bibliography

“Climate Change and Alaska Fisheries.” Ground Truth Trekking, www.groundtruthtrekking.org/Issues/Fisheries/Climate-Change-Ocean-Acidification-Alaska-Fisheries-Impacts.html .

“Temperature Changes in Alaska.” Temperature Changes in Alaska | Alaska Climate Research Center, climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/TempChange.html.

Irfan, Umair. “Alaska's plan to pay for climate change: drill for more oil.” Vox, Vox, 3 Nov. 2017, www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/3/16602764/alaska-climate-change-oil-anwr .

“An Alaskan Plan to Tackle Climate Change.” Ocean Conservancy, 27 Dec. 2017, oceanconservancy.org/blog/2017/12/27/alaskan-plan-tackle-climate-change/.