Ch. 1 Sec.2: Our environment and society.
According to ecologist Garret Hardin, the main difficulty in finding solutions to today's environmental problems is "the conflict between the short-term interests of the individual and the long-term welfare of society". He used the commons as an example, basically patches of land that belonged to the whole village; the example went like this: farmers want to put many animals in the commons, however if too many animals graze on the commons they destroy the grass, if the grass is destroyed nobody will be able to use the commons. Hardin made it his point to exemplify the fact that someone or some group must be held responsible for a certain resource or it will become depleted. Natural resources are a good example of this, humans use natural resources daily and must be able to take care of them efficiently if not, future generations will not be allowed to take advantage of our commons.
The Law of Supply and Demand states that as the demand for a good or service increases, the value or the food or service also increases. A good example in today's society would be oil production.
The cost of environmental solutions are very high, but although the outcome may not result in grater economic solutions, the fact that pollution levels will go down should greatly outweigh monetary values. Environmental regulations can be solved by taking a grater chunk of taxes and implementing them into environmentally green solutions.
The Law of Supply and Demand states that as the demand for a good or service increases, the value or the food or service also increases. A good example in today's society would be oil production.
The cost of environmental solutions are very high, but although the outcome may not result in grater economic solutions, the fact that pollution levels will go down should greatly outweigh monetary values. Environmental regulations can be solved by taking a grater chunk of taxes and implementing them into environmentally green solutions.
Unequal distribution of wealth and resources greatly varies the amount of environmental problems the world can tackle at a time. For example, developed countries have higher incomes, slower population growth, diverse economies, and stronger social support. Meanwhile, developing countries have lower average income, simple agriculturally based societies and rapid population growth due to the amount of space.
Population and consumption is a big factor in today's environmental problems. Human population in some areas is elevating to quickly for the local environment to support. People are using up our resources too quickly.