How Business Relates to Environmental Issues Flashcards
True or false:
By setting a common standard for all firms, government can take the cost of pollution control out of competition
True
What is a Market-based mechanism that is designed to fight global warming
Cap and Trade
True or false:
Rewards and incentives are effective ways to make business people consider the environmental impacts of their actions.
True
What are the three reasons that companies are going green?
- Gain competitive advantage
- Gain legitimacy
- Moral commitment to ecological responsibility
Being able to continue their activities indefinitely, without altering the carrying capacity of the earth’s ecosystem, is a characteristic of:
- Ecologically sustainable organizations
- Concerned citizens
- Codes of environmental conduct
- Environmental regulations
- Ecologically sustainable organizations
Some researchers believe that business firms moving towards ecological sustainability results in:
- More government regulation
- Decreased worker productivity
- Competitive advantages
- Less money for shareholders
- Competitive advantages
What is a global commons?
A commons is a shared resource that a group of people uses collectively
what are three critical factors that have combined to accelerate the ecological crisis facing the world community and to make sustainable development more difficult?
- Population explosion
- World income inequality – 40% of world population below the poverty line (Africa, South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific)
- Rapid industrialization of many developing nations
The study of how living things interact with one another in a unified natural system is called:
Ecology
What is carrying capacity?
The number of people the earth can support given current consumption rates
The average U.S. citizen has an ecological footprint of:
23 acres
How many acres of biologically productive area does the Earth have per person?
5.2
The amount of land and water a human population needs to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its waste given prevailing technology is called:
Ecological footprint
True or false:
Deforestation – cutting down and not replacing trees – contributes to global warming.
True
How did the American government introduce cap and trade into our economy?
The clean air act of 1990
What are some ways for the government to reduce pollution besides cap and trade?
- Emissions charges or fees
- Incentives, such as the government only dealing with companies that meet their standards, or offer offering aid to those that install pollution control equipment.
