Chapter 3 Flashcards
What is a market failure?
Misallocation of resources in which an individual or business benefits at the expense of society
What are externalities?
Consequences or side effects of industrial or commercial activity, often environmental damage is a hidden cost of economic activity
What paper discussed the misuse of common property resources? What is a common property resource?
-“The tragedy of the commons” Garret Hardin 1968
-Common Property Resource: Resources owned collectively by society as a whole.
What is ecological economics? What do they try to do?
Discipline focused on sustainable development. Biodiversity valued. Conservative, preservative use of land. Like how the DNR enforces game and land laws.
What is cost benefit analysis and why is it done? Why is it necessary to incorporate long-term gains? Why might leaders go into immediate reward rather than long-term?
-What produces the most monetary benefits while preserving the environment.
-It is good to look at the long-term impacts so we can see if there are going to be side effects
-So the leaders look good in the moment, or so they get more money.
There has been interest developing in the East coast of the US for oil exploration-how might the precautionary principle be applied to this issue?
-The caution due to possibility of not having all the info available.
-i.e, there could be a species that could potentially be beneficial, like a bacteria that could help cure cancer, so we would suggest not drilling in order to preserve that
**What is the opportunity cost of conservation programs?
-The loss of benefits to individuals or groups that would have been available from alternative courses of action. The opposite of what you could have done.
i.e. The possibility of ecotourism after logging and vice versa
-Resources cant be used by people
-Anything you couldn’t be able to do because of the money you spent on something else.
What is the GPI and how does it differ from GDP? How has the calculation of these indices varied over the years? Why do they treat natural (or human caused) disaster differently?
-GPI: (Genuine Progress Indicator) Genuine impact of economy, good monetary increase. Doesnt always go up.
-GDP: (Gross Domestic Product) Market value, economic increase in country, only measures spending. Usually increases.
-People spend a lot during disasters (High GDP Low GPI)
What is the EPI? What gives a country a higher score? How does economic stability relate to conservation efforts?
-Environmental Performance Index: Ranks countries based on how they protect the environment.
-Countries with higher per capita income generally rank higher on the EPI
What is the fundamental difference between Direct and Indirect use value of a species?
-Direct: Consumptive/production values
-Indirect: Social, cultural, ethical, environmental value
How is consumptive value different from a productive use value? How are each calculated/estimated? Examples?
-CV: Goods consumed locally, never made it to market, not bought or sold. i.e hunted game (replacement cost approach)
-PV: Value of resource harvested from the wild and sold in national and international markets. i.e raw sold materials (Price paid at first sale- cost incurred to bring it to that point)
Why might it be important to provide a country with royalties or some other pay for the wild species collected in their territories and used to make new drugs, ag products, etc.?
Provides incentive for countries to conserve species
-Cyclosporin (medical mushroom, stole from countries, they sued)
Why is ecosystem (primary) productivity important? How does the diversity of plants affect productivity or resistance to stress?
-It is the base of the food chain
-Carbon sequestration–produce O2 and absorb CO2 from atmosphere
-We depend on photosynthesis activity of plants and algae
-Plant productivity increases with diversity
-Increased diversity increases productivity, nutrient uptake from soil, insect diversity, tolerance of drought conditions and exotic species(fight invasives); decreased susceptibility to drought.
How does terrestrial vegetation protect our surface waters? What can happen when its damaged?
-Helps fight erosion and runoff into bodies of water.
-Filter for surface water
-Erosion, landslides, water pollution, etc
Why is sediment or silt a pollutant to aquatic organisms?
They can kill FW and marine organisms. They can also damage water supplies for humans
