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Chapter 17: Environmental Economics, Politics, and Worldviews
World Bank
Site that focuses on environmental indicators and environmental economics.
http://www.worldbank.org/environmentaleconomics
Environmental Literacy Council
Local sustainability ideas and conversations.
http://www.sustainable.org/
City of San Francisco
Sustainable future plan.
http://www.sustainable-city.org/
Digital Integration
Correlation to Global Environment Watch
Activism International Agreements
Biocentrism International Union for Conservation of Nature
Biosecurity Kyoto Protocol
Center for International Environmental Law Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Consumption Market Mechanisms
Deep Ecology NGOs
Ecological Economics Non-Market Valuation
Instructor’s Manual for Environmental Science, 15th edition
Global Environment Watch: Ecological Economics World Wildlife Fund
Global Environment Watch: Ecosystem Services
Global Environmental Ethics Watch: Deep Ecology
Global Environmental Ethics Watch: Environmental Economics
Governance
Green Economy
Green Jobs
Greenpeace International
Correlation to Explore More
Aquatic Ecosystems Environmental Law
Suggested Answers to End of Chapter Questions
Answers will vary but these represent phrases from this chapter. The following are examples of the material
that should be contained in possible student answers to the end of chapter questions. They represent only a
summary overview and serve to highlight the core concepts that are addressed in the text. It should be
anticipated that the students will provide more in-depth and detailed responses to the questions depending
on an individual instructor’s stated expectations.
Review
Core Case Study
1. Explain why the decisions and actions of the United States and China will play a major
role in determining whether the world can make a shift to a more sustainable future, and
17.1, left). Indeed, if everyone in the world used resources equal to what the average
American uses, we would need about five planet Earths to support them. As in the U.S.
case, China’s economic growth has resulted in severe environmental problems, which
have contributed to its total ecological footprint—the second largest in the world.
Section 17-1
2. What is the key concept for this section? What is economics? Distinguish among natural
capital, human capital and manufactured capital. Define economic growth. What is a
high-throughput economy? Define economic development and environmentally
Chapter 17: Environmental Economics, Politics, and Worldviews
of a good or service that is available), demand (the amount of a good or service that people want),
and price (the market value of a good or service). If the demand for a good or service is greater
than the supply, its price rises, and when supply exceeds demand, the price falls.
• Natural capital includes resources and services produced by the earth’s natural processes, which
support all economies and all life.
• High-throughput economies attempt to boost economic growth by increasing the flow of natural
matter and energy resources through their economic systems to produce more goods and services.
• An environmentally sustainable economic development is an approach that uses political and
economic systems to encourage environmentally beneficial and more sustainable forms of
economic growth and to discourage environmentally harmful forms of economic growth that
degrade natural capital.
• Neoclassical economists view the earth’s natural capital as a subset, or part, of a human economic
system. They assume that the potential for economic growth is essentially unlimited and is
necessary for providing businesses with profits and workers with jobs. They also consider natural
capital as important but not indispensable because they believe we can find substitutes for
essentially any resource.
• Ecological economists point out that there are no substitutes for many vital natural resources such
as clean air, clean water, fertile soil, and biodiversity, or for nature’s free ecological or natural
services such as climate control, air and water purification, pest control, and nutrient recycling.
Section 17-2
3. What is the key concept for this section? Why do products and services actually cost more than
most people think? What is full-cost pricing and what are some benefits of using it to determine
the market values of goods and services? Give three reasons why it is not widely used. Define
subsidies. What are perverse subsidies and how do they contribute to environmental problems?
Define and distinguish between gross domestic products (GDP) and per capita GDP. What is the
genuine progress indicator (GPI) and how does it differ from the GDP? Why are environmental
indicators important? What are the major advantages and disadvantages of green taxes? Why so
some analysts find most tax systems to be backward? What are three suggested requirements for
the successful implementation of green taxes?
Instructor’s Manual for Environmental Science, 15th edition
• The market price, or direct price, that we pay for a product or service usually does not include all
of the indirect, or external, costs of harm to the environment and human health associated with its
production and use. For this reason, such costs are often called hidden costs.
• Economic growth is usually measured by the percentage of change in a country’s gross domestic
product (GDP): the annual market value of all goods and services produced by all firms and
• Full-costs include the harmful environmental costs in the market prices of goods and services.
Full-cost pricing would reduce resource waste, pollution, and environmental degradation and
improve human health by encouraging producers to invent more resource-efficient and less-
polluting methods of production. It would also enable consumers to make more informed
decisions about the goods and services they buy. Jobs and profits would be created in
environmentally beneficial businesses.
• Full-cost pricing is not widely used due to opposition from producers of harmful and wasteful
products and services who would have to charge more, and might go out of business. Also, it is
difficult to estimate many environmental and health costs. Also, jobs and profits would be lost in
environmentally harmful businesses as consumers would more often choose green products.
• Some government subsidies to businesses create a huge economic incentive for
unsustainable resource waste, depletion, and environmental degradation. Shifting to
• See Figure 17-7 Using green taxes to help reduce pollution and resource waste has advantages and
disadvantages.
o Advantages are help bring about full-cost pricing, encourage businesses to develop
economically beneficial technologies and goods to save money, and easily administered
by existing tax agencies.
o Disadvantages are low-income groups are penalized unless safety nets are provided, hard
4. Distinguish between command-and-control and incentive-based, or innovation-friendly,
government regulations and list the advantages of the second approach. What are the major
advantages and disadvantages of using the cap-and-trade approach to implementing
environmental regulations for controlling pollution and resource use? What are some
environmental benefits of selling services instead of goods? Give two examples of this
approach.
• Most environmental regulation in the United States, and many other developed countries, has
involved passing laws that are enforced through a command and control approach, with many
regulations that concentrate on cleanup instead of prevention. Some regulations also set
compliance deadlines that are too short to allow companies to find innovative solutions, or require
use of specific technologies, where less costly but equal or better alternatives might be available.
A different approach favored by many economists and environmental and business leaders is to
use incentive-based regulations. Rather than requiring all companies to follow the same fixed
• Figure 17-8 lists the advantages and disadvantages of using tradable pollution and resource-use
permits. The effectiveness of such programs depends on how high or low the initial cap is set and
on the rate at which the cap is reduced to encourage further innovation. Advantages include:
flexible, easy to administer; encourage pollution prevention and waste reduction; permit prices
determined by market transactions; and confront ethical problem of how much pollution or
resource waste is acceptable. Disadvantages include: big polluters and resource wasters can buy
their way out, may not reduce pollution at dirtiest plants, can exclude small companies from
buying permits, caps can be too high and not regularly reduced to promote progress, and self-
monitoring of emissions can promote cheating.
• Xerox leases most of its copy machines as part of its mission to provide document services instead
of selling photocopiers. When a customer’s service contract expires, Xerox takes the machine
back for reuse or remanufacture. Canon in Japan and Fiat in Italy are taking similar measures. In
Europe, Carrier leases and installs energy-efficient heating and air conditioning equipment that is
durable and easy to rebuild or recycle.
5. What is poverty and how is it related to population growth and environmental degradation?
List six ways in which governments, businesses, lenders and individuals can help to reduce
poverty. What is microlending and how can it benefit the poor and the environment? What are
the Millennium Development Goals? What is a low-throughput (low-waste) economy? List
Instructor’s Manual for Environmental Science, 15th edition
the environmental problems we face. Reducing poverty benefits individuals, economies, and the
environment and helps to slow population growth.
• Suggestions to reduce poverty and its harmful effects:
o Mount a massive global effort to combat malnutrition and the infectious diseases that kill
their income.
• Most of the world’s poor people want to work and to earn enough to climb out of poverty.
But few of them have credit records or assets that they could use for collateral to secure
loans. With loans, they could buy whatever they would need to start farming or to start
small businesses. For almost three decades, an innovation called microlending, or
microfinance, has helped a number of people to deal with this problem. For example, since
economist Muhammad Yunus started it in 1983, the Grameen (Village) Bank in
Bangladesh has provided microloans ranging from $10 to $1,000 to more than 7.6 million
• See Figure 17-11 Solutions: strategies for shifting to more environmentally sustainable economies,
or eco-economies, during this century. Strategies fall into one of three categories:
o Economics
▪ Reward environmentally sustainable economic development
▪ Use full-cost pricing
▪ Sell more services instead of more things
o Resource use and pollution
▪ Cut resource use and waste by reducing, reusing and recycling
▪ Improve energy efficiency
Section 17-3
6. What is the key concept for this section? Define policies, politics, environmental policy, and
representative democracy. List the four components of the policy life cycle. What are special
interest groups? Give four examples. What are four major types of public lands in the United
States? Summarize the political controversy over managing these lands. What is nvironmental
justice and what kinds of environmental injustice occur in the United States and in China?
List seven principles that decision makers can use in making environmental policy. What are
Chapter 17: Environmental Economics, Politics, and Worldviews
four ways in which individuals in democracies can help to influence environmental policy?
What are three ways to provide environmental leadership?
• Concept 17-3 Individuals can work together to become part of political processes that influence
how environmental policies are made and implemented.
• Politics is the process by which individuals and groups try to influence or control the policies and
actions of governments at local, state, national, and international levels.
• Legislators and individuals evaluating existing or proposed environmental policies should be
guided by several principles designed to minimize environmental harm:
o The reversibility principle: Try not to make a decision that cannot be reversed later if the
decision turns out to be wrong.
o The net energy principle: Do not encourage the widespread use of energy alternatives or
technologies with low net energy yields.
• Four types of public land are the National Forest System, National Wildlife Refuges, National
Park System, and National Wilderness Preservation System.
• Since the 1800s, there has been intense controversy over how to use and manage the valuable oil,
natural gas, coal, geothermal, timber, and mineral resources on federal public lands.
o Most conservation biologists, environmental economists, and many free-market economists
believe that public lands should be used primarily for protecting biodiversity, wildlife
habitats, and ecosystems, that no one should receive government subsidies or tax breaks for
using or extracting resources on public lands, the American people deserve fair compensation
for the use of their property, and that all users or extractors of resources on public lands
• See Figure 17-16 for ways in which individuals can influence and change local, state, and national
government policies in constitutional democracies.
o Become informed on issues
o Make your views known at public hearings and to elected representatives
Instructor’s Manual for Environmental Science, 15th edition
• At a fundamental level, all politics is local. What we do to improve environmental quality in our
own neighborhoods, schools, and work places has national and global implications, much like the
ripples spreading outward from a pebble dropped in a pond. This is the meaning of the slogan,
“Think globally; act locally.”
• Ways to provide environmental leadership include:
o First, we can lead by example, using our own lifestyle and values to show others that change
is possible and can be beneficial.
7. What are five major types U.S. environmental laws? What are two problems that hinder
effective environmental regulation? Describe the roles of grassroots and mainstream
• See Figure 17-17 Some major environmental laws enacted in the United States since
1969.
o
National Environmental Policy Act
o
Clean Air Act
o
Clean Water Act
o
Coastal Zone Management Act
• Since 1980, a well-organized and well-funded movement has mounted a strong campaign
to weaken or repeal existing U.S. environmental laws and regulations and to change the
ways in which public lands are used. Three major groups are strongly opposed to various
U.S. environmental laws and regulations: some corporate leaders and owners, and other
• The spearheads of the global conservation, environmental, and environmental justice movements
are the tens of thousands of nonprofit NGOs working at the international, national, state, and local
levels. NGOs range from grassroots groups with just a few members to organizations like the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a 5-million-member global conservation organization, which
Chapter 17: Environmental Economics, Politics, and Worldviews
features a wind turbine, panels of solar cells, furniture made of recycled materials, and waterless
(composting) toilets.
• According to environmental expert Norman Myers, If a nation’s environmental
foundations are degraded or depleted, its economy may well decline, its social fabric
• A number of international environmental organizations help to shape and set global
environmental policy. Perhaps the most influential is the United Nations, which supervises
a large family of organizations including the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), the
World Health Organization (WHO), the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), and the
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Other organizations that make or influence
environmental decisions are the World Bank, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and
the World Conservation Union (also known as the IUCN). Despite their often limited
funding, these and other international organizations have played important roles in:
o Expanding global understanding of environmental issues;
Section 17-4
8. What is the key concept for this section? What is an environmental worldview? What are
environmental ethics? What is a human-centered (anthropocentric) worldview?. Summarize
the debate over whether we can effectively manage the earth. Summarize the ecological
lessons learned from the failure of the Biosphere 2 project. Define life-centered (biocentric)
and earth-centered environmental worldviews.
• Concept 17-4 Major environmental worldviews differ on which is more important—human needs
Section 17-5
9. What is the key concept for this section? What are three foundational principles of
environmental literacy? Give two examples of how we can learn from the earth. What is
nature-deficit disorder and why is it important? What does it mean to adopt a lifestyle of
voluntary simplicity? What is the first step to living more lightly? List five guidelines for
achieving more sustainable and compassionate societies. List eight important steps that
individuals can take to help make the transition to living more sustainably. List six important
cultural shifts that could be part of a sustainability revolution. Describe Lester R. Brown’s
role in helping the world shift to a more environmentally sustainable future.
• Concept 17-5 We can live more sustainably by becoming environmentally literate, learning from
nature, living more simply and lightly on the earth, and becoming active environmental citizens.
• Three important ideas that form the foundation of environmental literacy:
• See Figure 17-20 Achieving environmental literacy involves being able to answer certain
questions and having an understanding of certain key topics.
o How does life on earth sustain itself?
o How am I connected to the earth and other living things?
o Where do the things I consume come from and where do they go after I use them?
o What is my worldview?
o What is my environmental responsibility as a human being?
• Analysts suggest that we have much to learn from nature. We can kindle a sense of awe,
wonder, mystery, excitement, and humility by standing under the stars or sitting in a
forest. We might pick up a handful of topsoil and sense the microscopic life within it that
helps keep us alive by producing most of the food we eat. We might look at a tree, a
mountain, a rock, or a bee, and try to sense how each of them is connected to us and we to
them, through the earth’s life-sustaining processes.
• Direct experiences with nature can reveal parts of the complex web of life that cannot be
Chapter 17: Environmental Economics, Politics, and Worldviews
10.
What are this chapter’s three big ideas? Explain how the United States and China could apply
the principles of sustainability in making the shift to a more sustainable future.
• Figure 17-22 Solutions: Cultural shifts in emphasis that will be necessary to bring about
the environmental or sustainability revolution.
o
From fossil fuels, energy waste, and climate disruption to direct and indirect
solar energy, energy efficiency and climate stabilization.
• Figure 17-23 Change can occur very rapidly. Exponential growth starts off slowly, but at
some point it increases at a very rapid rate and heads sharply upward. Exponential growth
in any or all of several environmental concerns, social trends, economic tools, and
technologies could help us to shift toward a more sustainable world within a very short
time.
• As we explore different paths toward sustainability, we must first understand that our lives and
societies depend on natural capital and that one of the biggest threats to our ways of life is our
active role in natural capital degradation. With that understanding, we begin the search for
solutions to difficult environmental problems. One or more of the three principles of sustainability
will likely govern most of the solutions we devise. Competing interests working together to find
the solutions must make trade-offs because this is the essence of realistic political change.
• Here are this chapter’s three big ideas:
o A more sustainable economic system would include the harmful environmental and
health costs of producing and using goods and services in their market prices, subsidize
Instructor’s Manual for Environmental Science, 15th edition
Critical Thinking
In making a shift to a more sustainable future, what do you think are the three most important
things that (a) the United States needs to do, (b) China needs to do (Core Case Study), and (c)
you need to do?.
2. Suppose that over the next 20 years, the environmental and health costs of goods and services
are gradually added to their market prices until those prices more closely reflect their total
costs. What harmful effects and what beneficial effects might such a full-cost pricing process
have on your lifestyle and on the lives of any children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren
you might eventually have?
Harmful effects of full-cost pricing: (a) Jobs could be lost in environmentally unfriendly/harmful
Beneficial effects of full-cost pricing: (a) Can invest in more resource-efficient and less-polluting
production methods that are more sustainable. (b) Consumers can choose from a greater selection of
“green” products. (c) Phase out government subsidies to companies using harmful environmental
and health strategies in producing their goods and services.
Lifestyle effects would include some direct effects of any or all of the above.
Which three of the components of more sustainable economic development shown in Figure 17.11 do
you think are the most important ones to promote? Which three do you think are the least important?
3. Explain why you agree or disagree with each of the seven principles listed on p. 000, which
are recommended by some analysts for use in making environmental policy decisions. Which
three of these principles do you think are the most important? Why?
Answers will vary—one example follows:
(a) I agree with all of the major principles for shifting to more environmentally sustainable economies.
I feel that the three most important principles are improving energy efficiency and moving from a
carbon-based to a renewable fuel-based economy; stabilizing the population by reducing fertility,
Chapter 17: Environmental Economics, Politics, and Worldviews
The prevention principle: I agree. It is much better to prevent pollution than clean it up. We need to
apply this rationale to all human activities relating to the natural world so that we do not make things
worse. Some decisions may have to include and mandate certain mitigation strategies if those decisions
are acted on.
The polluter pays principle: I agree that industry should develop ways to produce their products in the
most environmentally friendly ways possible. They should be held accountable. However, in the
economic society we live in, any extra costs incurred with manufacturing goods will be passed on to
the consumer. This will result in a higher cost for the product and may make the consumer think twice
before buying it.
The human rights principle: I agree. For centuries, one group of people has been exploited by another
group of people for economic and other gains. One group wins and the other loses. We need to develop
a new way of thinking about how developed countries deal with the inhabitants of developing
countries; not just with the government but every person in the country. For example, the world’s need
for oil is having a profound effect on the tribal communities and citizens of Nigeria, who are suffering
from the environmental degradation of its extraction and the upheaval that is occurring within that
society. This is not thought about when the average member of the developed world fills up their car
with gasoline.
4. Explain why you agree or disagree with (a) each of the four principles that biologists and
some economists have suggested for using public lands in the United States (pp. 000-000) ,
and (b) each of the five suggestions made by developers and resource extractors for managing
and using U.S. public lands (p. 000).
Instructor’s Manual for Environmental Science, 15th edition
(a) The four principles of conservation biologists and environmental economists include: 1 using
public lands primarily for protecting biodiversity, wildlife habitats and ecosystems; 2. preventing
government subsidies or tax breaks for resource extraction on public land; 3. American people should
6. This chapter summarized several different environmental worldviews. Go through these
worldviews and find the beliefs you agree with, and then describe your own
environmental worldview. Which of your beliefs, if any, were added or modified as a
result of taking this course? Compare your answer with those of your classmates.
One possible answer: I have always believed that life in all forms, large and small, should be treated
with utmost respect, and that humans as the dominant species on the planet have a moral responsibility
7. Explain why you agree or disagree with the following ideas: (a) everyone has the right to have as many
children as they want; (b) all people have a right to use as many resources as they want; (c) individuals
should have the right to do whatever they want with land they own, regardless of whether such actions
harm the environment, their neighbors, or the local community; (d) other species exist to be used by
humans; (e) all forms of life have an intrinsic value and therefore have a right to exist. Are your
answers consistent with the beliefs making up your environmental worldview, which you described in
answering question 6? If not, explain.
There will be a diversity of answers to these questions. The examples below are of a fairly extreme
view. For grading this question, it should be clear that the student understands the type of worldview
they are articulating.
(a) No, it should be illegal for any woman to bear more than two children in her lifetime. Why?
Because we have overcome nature and those natural forces—such as disease, food shortages, and
8. Do you think we have a reasonable chance of bringing about a sustainability revolution within your
lifetime? Explain. If you are nearing the end of this course, is your view of the future more hopeful or
less hopeful than it was when you began this course? Compare your answers with those of your
classmates.
Answers will vary, dependent upon age and inclination of the student. People who are in their twenties
Global Environment Watch Exercise
Within the GREENR database, use the World Map feature, and under “Browse,” select Sustainability.
Click on the pins for the United States, Japan, China, India, and one other country of your choice and
research what each of them is doing to try to become more sustainable. Which of these sustainability
Ecological Footprint Analysis
1. After deciding on your group’s research area, conduct your analysis. As part of your analysis,
develop a list of questions that will help to determine the ecological impact related to your
chosen topic. Each question item in this questionnaire could have a range of responses on a
scale of 1 (poor) to 10 (excellent).
2. Analyze your results and share them with the class to determine what can be done to shrink the
ecological footprint of your school.
3. Arrange a meeting with school officials to share your action plan with them.
