Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Week Seven: Environmental Economics

Environmental economics focuses on the effects that various environmental issues and policies have on the local, national and international economy. Although the study of environmental economics encompasses all of the effects that can occur due to a variety of environmental issues and policies, the United States' National Bureau of Economic Research's Environmental Economics program is specifically concerned with the costs and benefits of policies geared towards air pollution, air quality, toxic substances, solid waste and global warming. Environmental economics in general, however, is focused more on the idea of market failure, which is what occurs when the market fails to apportion resources efficiently, or, as stated by Nick Hanley, Jason Shogren and Ben White, authors of Environmental Economics: In Theory and Practice: "A market failure occurs when the market does not allocate scarce resources to generate the greatest social welfare." In my opinion, environmental economics is one of, if not the most, important factors in the environmental mess we've gotten ourselves into. Because big businesses are so close interwoven with all levels of the government, those who own and are a part of those big businesses are the ones who are going to have to be argued with and swayed if any large-scale environmental policies and procedures are going to be inacted. I think that the best way to go about approaching these big businesses and through them, the government, about potential solutions to environmental problems, would be by gathering evidence through the application of environmental economics. Environmental economics is so perfect because not only is it concerned about environmental issues and policies, which is what we ought to care the most about, it is also concerned about the effects of environmental issues and policies, which is what a majority of us, unfortunately but nevertheless, care more about.

Environmental Economics Articles:
  • The Limited Potential of Ecotourism to Contribute to Wildlife Conservation
    Jack Coburn Isaacs
    Wildlife Society Bulletin
    Vol. 28, No. 1 (Spring, 2000), pp. 61-69
    Published by: Allen Press
    Stable URL:     http://www.jstor.org/stable/4617284

    Jack Coburn Isaacs, the author of The Limited Potential of Ecotourism to Contribute to Wildlife Conservation, argues about a topic that I've always been in support of, but am now re-thinking about because of his article. As is obvious by the the title, that topic is ecotourism. I personally have always liked this solution to protect the environment because, very simply, the environment is beautiful. Not only does it deserve to be preserved, but it deserves to be preserved in places that I or any other tourist would be able to enjoy it fully. Before reading this article, I both enjoyed this solution and thought it was one of the best out there. Isaacs, however, argues that the benefits ecotourism can provide are limited because conservations and preserves are not considered long-term solutions. What came as a surprise to me was that ecotourism often, actually, leads to further environmental degradation because it gives off the impression that the environment is actually doing incredibly well and doesn't need to be protected, backfiring completely. Isaacs ties his argument in with economics by stating that because the main purpose of ecotourism (promoting the protection of the environment) fails, the entire ecotourism market is prone to market failure.

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