Chapter 3 Flashcards
What are externalities
whether positive or negative, they are the hidden costs and benefits to a actions (unintended)
Environmental economics
places value on components of the environment
- Use system dynamics modeling to predict
potential future balances of human
population, pollution, and agriculture
production
Ecological economics
develop methods to value biodiversity by integrating economic valuation with ecology, environmental science, sociology, and ethics and to use those valuations to design better policies
cost-benefit analysis
compares values gained against the costs of a project on the environment
GDP
measures economic activity in a country without accounting for all the costs of unsustainable activities
Provisioning services
material/energy outputs of an ecosystem
Regulating services
act as regulators for quality of soil, air, water quality
-
Consumptive use value
consumed locally
- fuelwood, meat
Bioprospecting
activity of looking for biological communities to use for medicine or some
Existence value
Amount people are willing to pay to protect something (generally)
What is voluntary transaction?
tenant of economics which is the idea that a monetary transaction will only occur when its beneficial for both parties
perverse subsidies
an environment-damaging economic activity may appear profitable even when they’re actually losing money because the gov will reward them with tax breaks, free water, cheaper fossil fuel to subsidize what they lose for unsustainable practices
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
act that was passed that requires businesses to conduct an Environmental Assessment (EA) and an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)t in order to determine the costs/benefits to a project
Environmental Assessment (EA)
determines whether the env will be impacted by the project.
- performed first
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
determine the extent of the impact and outlines what will be done to mitigate the impact done to the env.
What is Tragedy of the commons and what prevents it?
There is no regulation of the an environment because it is an open access resource that everyone has access to (water, air, soil)
- Regulations
Gov program that is economically and environmentally harmful
Perverse subsidies
Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW)
includes factors such as the loss of farmlands, wetlands, impact of acid rain, # of people in poverty, and effects of pollution on human health
- Indicates that economists are growing only through unsustainable consumption of natural resources
Environmental Performance Index (EPI)
rank countries according to the health of, and threats to, the ecosystem, the vulnerability of human population to environmental conditions, the ability of their society protect the environment, and their participation in global conservation efforts
Indirect and direct contributions made to human well being for FREE
Ecosystem services
6 consumptive ecosystem services
Water, meat, wood, seafood, produce, medicine, textiles, soil
Bequest value
how much people are willing to pay to protect something of value for future generations
Contingent Valuation
Act of going out and doing a direct study to determine existence value
What determines if an EIS is needed?
EA
Value of nature to future generations
Bequest value
T-test
Compares 2 means
- same units
ANOVA
compares more that 2 means
- same units
Chi-square
looks at distribution of data and assumes whether numbers are evenly distributed and predicts what you would expect
Linear regression
looks at relationships
- different units
nirmal distribution
more of the data is closer to your mean than farther from the mean
- bell curve
- central tendency
