Introducing Environmental Science and Sustainability

1. Introducing Environmental Science and Sustainability 2

2. Overview of Chapter 2 • Brief Environmental History of the United States • US Environmental Legislation • Economics and the Environment • Environmental Justice • Environmental Ethics, Values and Worldviews

3. Environmental History of the US • 17th and 18th Centuries-Frontier Attitude • Natural Resources seemed inexhaustible • Widespread Environmental Destruction Establishment of Jamestown, VA Deforesting Midwest Dominated by Frontier Attitude 1600 1700 1900 1800

4. Environmental History of US • 19th century- US Naturalists voiced concerns about natural resources • Audobon- painted nature, which increased interest in environment • Thoreau- naturalist author on simplifying life • Marsh- wrote Man and Nature John James Audobon (1785-1851) Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882) 1750 1800 1900 1850

5. Environmental History of US • General Revision Act • Gave President authority to establish forest reserves • Presidents Harrison, Cleveland, Roosevelt • Put 17.4 million hectares into reserve • President Roosevelt • Reserved additional 6.5 million hectares before signing bill preventing further forest reservation (21 new national forests) 1875 American Forestry Assoc. Formed 1890 Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks Established 1891 General Revision Act 1871 first National Park 1875 1900 1850

6. Environmental History of US • Utilitarian Conservationist • Value natural resources for their usefulness • Teddy Roosevelt • Biocentric Preservationist • Protect nature because all life deserves respect • John Muir (founded Sierra Club) • Fought for National Parks

7. Environmental History of US • Antiquities Act • Allows president to set aside sites of scientific or historical importance (monuments: Mt. Rushmore) • American Dust Bowl (1930s droughts) • Basis for Soil Conservation Service • Created by Franklin Roosevelt 1916 National Park Service Created 1935 Creation of Soil Conservation Service 1906 Antiquities Act 1900 1925 1950

9. The Environmental Movement of the Late 20th Century • Earth Day • Est. 1970 by Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes • 20 million people in the US planted trees, cleaned roadsides and riverbanks in the first Earth Day.

10. US Environmental Legislation • Environmental Protection Agency • Est. 1970 • National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) • Cornerstone of Environmental Law • Require the federal government to consider the environmental impact of any proposed federal action. • Requires Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for any proposed federal action • Ex: highway or dam construction • Revolutionized environmental protection in US

11. Environmental Impact Statement

12. US Environmental Legislation • Numerous laws passed since 1970. • Greatly increased federal regulation of pollution, tough interlockig laws. • They address: • Clean water • Clean air • Energy conservation • Hazardous waste • Pesticides • Federal regulation of pollution

15. Environmental History of the USEnvironmental Era 1970’s cont….. • Jimmy Carter • 1977-Department of Energy (DOE) to reduce dependence on foreign oil • 1977-Clean Water Act • 1980-Superfund created in response to Love Canal to clean up abandoned hazardous waste • Tripled land in National Wilderness system and doubled land in the National Park System

16. Environmental History of the USEnvironmental Era 1980’s • Anti-environmental movement formed to weaken laws of 60’s and 70’s • Ronald Reagan • Increased private energy, mineral development and timber cutting • Funding for environmental resources cut • The “wise use” movement formed to weaken government over environmental issues

17. Environmental History of the USEnvironmental Era1990-2012 • George Bush Sr. • Weakened protections on almost as much public lands as Teddy Roosevelt protected • Increase fossil fuel use • Relaxation on air and water quality standards • 1992 attended the United Nations Conference, Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to discuss environmental issues

18. Effects of Environmental Legislation • Since 1970 • Six air pollutants have dropped by 25% (not CO2) • Since 1990 • wet sulfate levels decreased by 33% • As of 2008 • 92% of US had healthy drinking water (up from 75% in 1993) • As of 2006 • 45% of municipal waste is burned as waste-to-energy or recovered for recycling • As of 2007 • Human exposure to hazardous waste sites identified in 1969 is below 93%

19. Economics and the Environment • Economics- study of how people use limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants • Economics is utilitarian • Goods and services have value that can be converted to currency • Rational Actor Model • Assumes all individuals spend limited resources to maximize individual utilities • Ideal economy • Resources are allocated efficiently

20. Economics and Environment • Economies depend on the environment for goods and services. (ecosystem services) • Goods: Sunlight, fresh water, timber, and fossil fuels • Services: Nutrient cycling and purification of air and water • Economic activity can negatively affect the environment, which in turn can negatively affect economies. (Examples?)

21. Economic Optimality and Pollution Cost-benefit diagram- helps make decision about costs of particular action and benefit that would occur if the action

22. Optimum Amount of Pollution • Optimum Amount of Pollution • The amount of pollution that is economically most desirable. • Must identify • Marginal Cost of Pollution – The added cost of additional amount of pollution • Marginal Cost of Abatement – The added cost of reducing small amount of pollution

23. Estimating the Optimum Levels of Pollution Control and Resource Use • Environmental economists try to determine optimum levels of pollution control and resource use. Figure 24-6

24. Optimum Pollution Control • The marginal cost of cleaning up pollution rises with each additional unit removed.

25. Inefficiencies Arising from Different Marginal Costs

26. Cost-Benefit Analysis: a Useful but Crude Tool • Comparing likely costs and benefits of an environmental action is useful but involves many uncertainties. • Cost-benefit analysis –used to evaluate public projects, assessing the capital costs that must be paid in order to gain benefits for a large group of people. • If benefits exceed costs, the action goes forward; if costs exceed benefits, the project is not pursued • Cost–benefit analyses involves determining: • Who or what might be affected by a particular regulation or project. • Projecting potential outcomes. • Evaluating alternative actions. • Establishing who benefits and who is harmed.

27. ECONOMIC TOOLS FOR IMPROVING ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY • Including external costs in market prices informs consumers about the harmful impact of their purchases on earth’s life-support systems and on human health. • Externalities –the cost or impact of a good or service on people and the environment not included in the economic price of that good or service. • Example: the air and water pollution generated from building and operating a factory are externalities.

28. Environmental and Economic Indicators: Environmental Radar • We need indicators that reflect changing levels of environmental quality and human health. • Gross domestic product (GDP): Refers to the value of all products an service produced in a year in a given country. Insludes 4 types of spending: consumer, investment, government and exports minus imports. . This is an incomplete measure. measures the annual economic value of all goods and services produced in a country without taking harmful effects into consideration. • Genuine progress indicator (GPI) Genuine progress indicator attempts to address the shortcoming by including measures of person consumption, income distribution, levels of higher education resource depletion pollution and the health of the population. More accurate indicator of society's well-being.

29. National Income Accounts • Estimates of National Economic Performance and used in Politics • Gross Domestic Product (GDP) the primary indicators used to gauge the health of a country's economy. It represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period. • Net Domestic Product (NDP) The GDP minus depreciation on a country's capital goods. This measure allows users of the country's national accounts to estimate how much the country has to spend just to maintain their current GDP. If the country is not able to replace the capital stock lost through depreciation, then GDP will fall.Environment may be overexploited to yield a higher GDP in developing countries • EPI (Environmental Performance Index) • Assesses a country’s commitment to environmental and resource management

30. Environmental and Economic Indicators: Environmental Radar • Comparison of the per capita GDP and the GPI in the U.S. between 1950 and 2002. Figure 24-8

32. ECONOMIC TOOLS FOR IMPROVING ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY • Environmental laws and regulations work best if they motivate companies to find innovative ways to control and prevent pollution and reduce resource waste. • Governments can set a limit on pollution emissions or use of a resource, give permits to users, and allow them to trade their permits on the marketplace.

33. Deterrents and Incentives 2 Strategies for Pollution/Environmental Control • Command and Control Solutions • Government agency requires limitations to emissions or pollutants. Control by fines or other punishments. • Discourages development of low-cost alternatives • Incentive based Regulations- Control laws that work by establishing emission targets and providing industries with incentives to reduce emissions. • Environmental Taxes (green taxes) • The polluter-pays principal, which levies taxes on businesses that engage in environmentally harmful activities and products, provides a market-based incentive to discourage/correct the activity.

34. Deterrents and Incentives • Environmental Taxes (green taxes) A tax placed on environmentally harmful activities or emissions in an attempt to internalize some of the externalities that may be involved in the life cycle of those activities or products. • Subsidies-The government provides an incentive (cash or tax break) intended to encourage a particular industry or activity • Sometimes rebate and tax credits are given to individual and businesses purchasing certain items like energy efficient appliance.

35. Strategies for Pollution/Environmental Control • Permit trading-The Government issues marketable emissions permits to businesses that conduct environmentally harmful activities; the businesses then engage in buying and selling these permits to each other. • Cap and Trade System is an acceptable level of pollution is determined by the government, which then issues permits. (A company receives credit for amounts it does not emit and then can sell this credit to other companies unable to meet the capped standard)

36. Trade-Offs Environmental Taxes and Fees Advantages Disadvantages Penalizes low income groups unless safety nets are provided Helps bring about full-cost pricing Provides incentive for businesses to do better to save money Hard to determine optimal level for taxes and fees Need to frequently readjust levels, which is technically and politically difficult Can change behavior of polluters and consumers if taxes & fees are set at a high enough level Gov’ts may see this as a way of increasing general revenue instead of using funds to improve environmental quality and reduce taxes on income, payroll, & profits Easily administered by existing tax agencies Fairly easy to detect cheaters Fig. 24-10, p. 580

37. Green Taxes • Advantages of taxing wages and profits less and pollution and waste more. Figure 24-11

38. Trade-Offs Tradable Environmental Permits Advantages Disadvantages Flexible Big polluters and resource wasters can buy their way out May not reduce pollution at dirtiest plants Easy to administer Can exclude small companies from buying permits Encourages pollution prevention and waste reduction Caps can be too low Caps must be gradually reduced to encourage innovation Can promote achievement of caps Determining caps is difficult Permit prices determined by market transactions Must decide who gets permits and why Administrative costs high with many participants Confronts ethical problem of how much pollution or resource waste is acceptable Emissions and resource wastes must be monitored Self-monitoring can promote cheating Confronts problem of how permits should be fairly distributed Sets bad example by selling legal rights to pollute or waste resources Fig. 24-12, p. 582

39. How Would You Vote? • Do the advantages of green taxes and fees outweigh the disadvantages? a. No. Low-income people, farmers, ranchers, and small businesses would suffer from environmental taxes and fees. b. Yes. They would reduce waste and protect the environment.

40. How Would You Vote? • Do the advantages of using tradable pollution and resource-use permits to reduce pollution and resource waste outweigh the disadvantages? a. No. The policies would allow old and dirty plants to continue polluting local air and water. b. Yes. The policies are effective ways of capping and then reducing air and water pollution and resource use.

41. Critiques of Environmental Economics • Ecosystem services have no known value • Utilitarian economics may not be appropriate • Dynamic changes and time are not considered • Difficult to assess true costs of environmental pollution and abatement • Impacts of pollution on people and nature is uncertain

42. Environmental Justice • The right of every citizen regardless of age, race and gender, social class or other factor, to adequate protection from environmental hazards • Generally, members of low income and minority communities: • Face more environmental threats and have fewer environmental amenities • Have less voice in planning

43. Environmental Justice • Challenge of environmental justice • To find equitable solutions that respect all groups of people • National level • 1994- Clinton required all federal agencies to ensure their policies do not discriminate against poor or minority communities when locating future hazardous facilities • International level • 1989- Basal Convention (on exporting waste)

44. Environmental Ethics • Field of ethics that considers the moral basis of environmental responsibility • Western Worldview • Human superiority and dominance over nature • Deep Ecology Worldview • All species have an equal worth to humans • Most people’s ethics fall somewhere in between