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Discuss the economic aspect of the environment
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In the language of economists, “willingness to pay” describes the amount of money a person would sacrifice in order to obtain an additional unit of utility. In environmental economics, specifically, WTP is used to reflect the maximum amount a person would give up in exchange for an increase in an environmental “good” (for example, a one-unit increase in the cleanliness of a lake) or the minimum amount a person would accept in exchange for an environmental “bad” (for example, a one-unit increase in air pollution). Certainly, WTP can be a useful tool when used during standard cost-benefit analysis. However, the specific use of WTP as a measure of environmental values is flawed in several respects: it is dependent on the public’s awareness …show more content…
An old adage asks: “If a tree falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Similarly, in pondering the effectiveness of WTP, one could ask: “If a tree is to be cut down, but no one is aware of its impending loss, is anyone willing to pay to save it?” The answer, of course, is no. WTP depends on the public salience of a particular environmental issue, and this is deeply problematic. As economist Allen Kneese notes, WTP assumes that “all participants in the market” are “fully informed as to the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of goods and services,” a premise that he further notes is “tenuous at best” (qtd. in Sagoff 33). It may be very difficult for most people to make …show more content…
While revealed preferences remove all possibilities of deliberately misleading preference statements, there are other drawbacks. It is very difficult to accurately extrapolate a person’s behaviour in a marketplace into a clear illustration of the valuation of their preferences. Again, it is best to illustrate this with an example. One technique used by some economists to estimate the value people place on national parks is to examine the costs they incur (in both money and opportunity costs, such as time) in order to visit them. If all costs of a family trip to a national park total $500, that family must value the benefits they receive from visiting the park at at least $500. Or do they? Perhaps the family derives their entire benefits of the trip from the time spent together, as opposed to the destination itself. Perhaps a park visit is equally substitutable with a trip to Disneyland, were the park to no longer exist. And would it not be ridiculous to conclude that a national park is not valued by society if no one were to visit it? It is often very difficult to derive a person’s or communities’ true WTP from their so-called revealed
David Suzuki's essay "It Always Costs" explores why technological advancements made in our society are not always in our best interest. He refers to DDT as an example of why some technologies can actually have detrimental effects that will eventually outweigh the benefits they provide. Our heavy use of DDT in the past has caused numerous ecological problems like biomagnification that caused heavy bird mortality. Which is something we could not have predicted would happen. He then tries to come up with a solution to this problem by suggesting we create a panel with many different interests to do a cost/benefits analysis of all new technologies. But no such system can be relied on because our predictive and testing capabilities will always be
Putting a Value on Nature's Free Services. Unlike other issues we have read so far, this issue was trying to. weigh and value the externalities the environment faces. Overall, the best part is that it is a good product. the both arguments were suggesting the same point: environmental.
Utilitarianism is based on equality and utility as well as on the hedonistic versions of utilitarianism that distribute pleasure and pain or happiness and unhappiness. In the paper, Savior of the Goobians, Alex Bokhart discusses how a utilitarian approach can resolve the environmental injustices that are being experienced by a particular population (Bokhart, 2016). For through a utilitarian approach one can determine the vulnerability and need elements for each different recipient of environmental justice through weighing the basic pros and cons of, in this case study, the implementation of the Keystone XL pipeline. While Utilitarianism worked well in that particular paper, Bokhart’s case study was analyzing environmental pollution on the whole human race of a planet. Therefore, the pros and cons were much simpler unlike our specialized case between two communities within the whole human race: Native Americans and other U.S. Citizens and
By placing this emphasis on beauty in the wilderness the American people expected to see a beautiful wilderness, although in reality these two are not mutually exclusive. Muir supported a form of natural improvement in which alterations to the natural world are made, but not with any economic value in mind. Interestingly, Muir suggests that our wildness is a commodity to which, we are glad to see how much of even the most destructible kind is still unspoiled”. (Muir) By the time the National Park Service was founded in 1916 the American people wanted to be entertained by, and in, nature
The more than four hundred locations that are currently recognized as national parks have been set aside because they are considered special places of beauty, character, or uniqueness. Whether visitors come from the natural state or the concrete jungle, the magnificent aesthetics of these sites can cause anyone to be astonished. As they ponder on the wonderful landscapes and the closeness to the wilderness, their souls are nourished. Some people acknowledge the planet or the creator, but all appreciate the splendor of biodiversity and gain a new understanding of it. According to Frye and Nuest, “watching other species and interacting with them helps [people] better understand and appreciate [their] place among them and [their] obligations to other living creatures and the same planetary environment that sustain both [their and the lives of other species]” (54). Furthermore, since these sites have been carefully preserved, they have undergone very little physical or geological change in centuries. The NPS claimed through its website that “by preserving biodiversity, [they] also ensure that future citizens, artists, and explorers of science experience [America’s] lands as the founders of the parks did long ago.” National parks allow visitors to relive scenes from the past and appreciate the nation’s history as expressed in these iconic sites. However,
Every year, over nine million hikers and adventure seekers travel to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park making it the most visited national park in the United States. There are abundant reasons for this, but many popular reasons include over 150 hiking trails extending over 850 miles, a large portion of the Appalachian Trail, sightseeing, fishing, horseback riding, and bicycling. The park houses roughly ten thousand species of plants and animals with an estimated 90,000 undocumented species likely possible to be present. It is clear why there was a pressing interest in making all this land into a national park. My research was started by asking the question; how did the transformation of tourism due to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park affect surrounding cities such as Gatlinburg and Sevier County, and in return, its effect on the popularity of the park?
There are many assumptions that can explain the inverse U-shape relationship between pollution and income. It has been stated that the EKC is the result of non-homothetic preferences of users of environmental goods within the economy (Lopez, 1994). When individuals have homothetic preferences it implies that when income increases, so does consumption, which by extension causes increased pollution. When individuals have non-homothetic preferences, when income increases they decide to consume less and thus, pollute less. This depends on the relative risk aversion to damaging the environment in order to consume more.
Analyzing human obligation pertaining to all that is not man made, apart from humans, we discover an assortment of concerns, some of which have been voiced by philosophers such as Tom Regan, Peter Singer and Aldo Leopold. Environmentally ethical ideals hold a broad spectrum of perspectives that, not only attempt to identify a problem, but also focus on how that problem is addressed through determining what is right and wrong.
Rudel, K. Thomas, J. Timmons Roberts and JoAnn Carmin. 2011. “Political Economy of the Environment.” Annual Review of Sociology 37: 221-238.
Since the onset of the industrial revolution during the 19th century, humanity has rapidly stripped the earth of its natural resources and dumped countless byproducts into our environment. While 97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is real as well as man made (Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences) there is still debate as to the validity of this in the public debate. Philanthropic individuals and organizations play an important role in influencing public opinion as well as directly conserving at risk land and species in addition to fighting projects that could have disastrous environmental impact. These individuals play a major role in providing funding for environmental groups due a general lack of available government subsidies for the issue relative to subsidies provided for many other issues. (Kimble Pg. 2) These philanthropists come from varying sectors including finance, alternative energy, high technology, broadcasting, development and real estate.
“… It is apparent, then, that we cannot decide the question of development versus preservation by a simple referral to holy writ or an attempt to guess the intention of the founding fathers; we must make up our own minds and decide for ourselves what the national parks should be and what purpose they should serve.”-Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
When we think of environmental justice, we often focus on the ecosystem in which we as humans live, and the natural resources and non-human animals that live there. We tend to think about ethical uses of natural resources, and the effects it has on the non-human animals, such as animal rights, endangerment and extinction, loss of habitat, deforestation, erosion, and pollution. Environmental justice is another factor that is concerned with environmental protection and social justice, including humans into the mix of the complex ecosystem. Environmental justice considers the fair and equal distribution of cost and benefits between humans and the natural world. (1) Environmental justice is also defined as the fair treatment of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income and no particular group should have to bear more than their fair share of the burden of negative environmental consequences from industrial pollution or
Importantly, when thinking about the cost-benefit approach, it should be borne in mind that its proponents are not strictly motivated to act ethically, unless the cost of not doing so is sufficiently high, or if acting ethically will result in economic profit. For example, a industrial company may know that dumping chemical waste into a nearby river is harmful to the environment, and by extension, human and non-human animals, although still decide to dispose of their waste in such a manner, as it is economically cheaper to do so, than to dispose of the waste in a safe but more costly manner. In coming to such a decision, they may have also weighed the potential fines and loss of business if they are exposed, although determined that such costs are not sufficiently high compared to the economic savings of cheaper, inappropriate dumping, so will maintain the current method of disposal.
"Hybrid Values." NRDC: Hybrid Values. Natural Resources Defense Council, 20 July 2009. Web. 24 Dec. 2013.
The most obvious reason that the environment has moral significance is that damage to it affects humans. Supporters of a completely human-centered ethic claim that we should be concerned for the environment only as far as our actions would have a negative effect on other people. Nature has no intrinsic value; it is not good and desirable apart from its interaction with human beings. Destruction and pollution of the environment cannot be wrong unless it results in harm to other humans. This view has its roots in Western tradition, which declares that “human beings are the only morally important members of this world” (Singer p.268).