How Business Relates to Environmental Issues

Question 1

True or false:

By setting a common standard for all firms, government can take the cost of pollution control out of competition

Answer 1

True

Question 2

What is a Market-based mechanism that is designed to fight global warming

Answer 2

Cap and Trade

Question 3

True or false:

Rewards and incentives are effective ways to make business people consider the environmental impacts of their actions.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

What are the three reasons that companies are going green?

Answer 4

• Gain competitive advantage
• Gain legitimacy
• Moral commitment to ecological responsibility

Question 5

Being able to continue their activities indefinitely, without altering the carrying capacity of the earth’s ecosystem, is a characteristic of:

1. Ecologically sustainable organizations
2. Concerned citizens
3. Codes of environmental conduct
4. Environmental regulations

Answer 5

1. Ecologically sustainable organizations

Question 6

Some researchers believe that business firms moving towards ecological sustainability results in:

1. More government regulation
2. Decreased worker productivity
3. Competitive advantages
4. Less money for shareholders

Answer 6

3. Competitive advantages

Question 7

What is a global commons?

Answer 7

A commons is a shared resource that a group of people uses collectively

Question 8

what are three critical factors that have combined to accelerate the ecological crisis facing the world community and to make sustainable development more difficult?

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

The study of how living things interact with one another in a unified natural system is called:

Answer 9

Ecology

Question 10

What is carrying capacity?

Answer 10

The number of people the earth can support given current consumption rates

Question 11

The average U.S. citizen has an ecological footprint of:

Answer 11

23 acres

Question 12

How many acres of biologically productive area does the Earth have per person?

Answer 12

5.2

Question 13

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:

Answer 13

Ecological footprint

Question 14

True or false:

Deforestation – cutting down and not replacing trees – contributes to global warming.

Answer 14

True

Question 15

How did the American government introduce cap and trade into our economy?

Answer 15

The clean air act of 1990

Question 16

What are some ways for the government to reduce pollution besides cap and trade?

Answer 16

• 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.