Environmental Sustainability; A Consumption Approach
by Raghbendra & Murthy.
ISBN: 978-0-415-36346-4.
This book uses its pages to explain the idea of sustainable consumption. It then tries to apply some of the principles of the sustainability campaign in its approach to globalization. It goes on to try to explain the economic forces behind the apparent environmental degradation going on globally. The book addresses some of the main problems proposed by a spin off from the original Kuznets curve; the Environmental Kuznet's Curve states that rapid economic growth in many developing countries should be environmentally unsustainable, for the world’s ecosystems are already under considerable stress and more countries industrializing will inevitably cause more strain on the environment and ultimately push climate change past the tipping point. Only after the wealth from an industrial age is spread throughout the public, Kuznet's Curve suggests, only then do environmental regulations show up in public concerns. At a time when India and China, the world’s two most populous countries, are industrializing at a rapid pace, the ideas presented in this book are directly applicable to today’s world. The book emphasizes the importance of addressing the cause of environmental degradation and tries to relate this measure to economic achievement; in other words, by making a cost associated with pollution and by placing a price on clean air, water, land, and the living biosphere, the author of this book argues, the environmental degradation will begin to subside. The author proposes the revolutionary claim here that environmental protection is a sign of economic achievement; now how is that? … the basic explanation is that until food, shelter, and educational needs are met, environmental protections do not fall on the economic or political radars of developing nations. The idea of fundamentally changing the notion of economic achievement to be in line with the design of environmentally sustainable communities is central to the environmental movement's goals.
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Figuring environmental costs into a business strategy twenty years ago would have resulted in being labeled crazy or from another world, but those ‘cavemen' environmentalists are the people who did the groundwork; that is, they are the ones who went out changing people’s thinking around the ideas of consumption and sustainability, getting the public ready for policy and industry changes heading toward us here in the future. Without this initial movement raising the public’s awareness of issues regarding the environment, perhaps, just maybe, the world would not have been ready for its very own economic metamorphosis.
Now, economists have picked up on the approaching tsunami of public sentiment and are feverishly studying charts and graphs trying to draw conclusions about the relationship between the industrialization of a country, the ensuing wealth, and the environmental measures undertaken to repair damage from the initial industrialization.
The data they are studying are what is known as the Environmental Kuznet’s Curve. The EKC implies that some environmental degradation is expected along a country's economic development path, especially during the initial years of industrialization. It also suggests that when a country earns enough wealth, its own economic growth helps to undo some of the damage done in earlier years of industrialization so as to keep environmental feedstocks in plentiful conditions.
The key point that economists are studying here is the relationship between economic growth and the state of the environment. They are trying to accumulate data to support the relationship between a government’s policies regarding natural resources, the subsidies they pay out, their trade policy, and they are trying to relate all of these regulations to an environmental resource limit. Should the field of Economics be concerned with the state of the environment? How much money will a company be willing to pay out to secure the future of their business’ own particular feedstock? As economics reaches the limits of global demand and environmental supply, there seems to be reason to expect even more interest from the public in the area of sustainable business.
The EKC does not definitively conclude that improving the environment depends primarily on profits and the policies of major institutions during an industrial age. Rather, in a post-industrial society, major improvements in environmental quality tend to depend more upon governmental policies regarding a free competitive market. Governmental policies means more subsidies. In the past, more subsidies have been paid in the form of pollution exemptions than for industry innovation. This is exactly the thinking that needs to be reversed. More money should be going into encouraging innovation than goes for providing exemptions to polluters.
In a free market place, where carbon markets are allowed to naturally develop, a cost will be established regarding environmental pollution or degradation. This new natural cost is what will then ripple through economic markets helping free markets become more fair for more businesses; more business with environmental costs figured into the ethics of conduct is better is better for the environment, therefore, the new value-based economics can provide the same excessive financial gains and is still good for the environment.
Economics is good for the environment. The interaction most people ascribe to the relationship between economics and the environment is usually contrary in nature. Putting aside the contrary components of the argument, what the EKC does actually get at is the point that for many of the world’s industrialized nations, the public is already on the back of the bell curve in terms of environmental degradation. Innovation, today, is centered around a seamless blend into natural components; our society is being asked to evolve into one that utilizes sustainable principles.
The excitement surrounding this new relationship where the field of economics is used to meet consumer demand by upholding environmental principles and policies that help reduce the human footprint and sustain the living systems of the planet is self-generating. It is not hard at all imagining a world where clean renewables are the preferred method of energy development by all of the nations of the world in the future.
Environmentalists and economists are talking together to see if there is a more mutually beneficial relationship that can be arranged between the two schools of thought that they represent. According to the EKC, this collaboration is a positive advancement in a society’s development. While the EKC concludes that environmental regulations come after industrialization, and this is true on a historical timeline, it seems as though governmental policy is currently subsidizing self-interest, and they are not enacting the environmental regulations that they are entrusted to initiate. America has already gone through its industrial age; is there any room for stubbornness in the EKC?
Environmental economics sets the stage with a new rulebook, though. The new trend in business seems to be toward energy efficiency and resource sustainability. Banks are beginning to look to renewables as a way of defining long term industrial investment loan guarantees; many executive do not realize that they have a limited amount of time left to get ahead of the curve regarding emission markets. Globally, humanity is reaching a limit in terms of its consumptive habits.
At no other time in the world’s history has the relationship between industrialization and environmental degradation been so important. With close to one-third of the world’s population living in a country going through an industrial period, the earth is getting dirtier fast. China and India, the two population giants of the world, are entering the world’s stage and producing more waste and emissions than they have in the past. The world is reaching its toxic limit.
Perhaps somewhere in this relationship is the answer that will push humans past the tipping point, and headed in the direction of a sustainable future. The relationship between profits and perspective is an important one to consider. Can the world afford to care for the environment? Can we afford not to? When natural disasters happen close to home, they tend to have life changing effects. When is the next one going to happen in a neighborhood near you? No harm meant, but what does it take to make a society decide to change something as fundamental as energy production.
For now, just talking about the relationship between the environment and economics is a step in the right direction. Over the course of the next century, though, a smart person wagering on human evolution would bet on a more sustainable way of doing business establishing itself through the present into the future. If the last fifteen years of global climate fluctuations are any indication of the effects that ignoring the problem will have, then people on into the future will have to change in the midst of a disaster, simply as a matter of survival.
It does not seem crazy to want to protect our society against plausible scenarios in the future. Environmentalism is rooted in this world; there is nothing alien about hijacking economics in order to serve humanity’s desire to protect themselves from disaster. It is a matter of survival. If that is too dramatic for you, then it is a matter of quality of life, and improving that will be an economic achievement in its own right.
What is most important here is the relationship between what we value and what we throw away. We are currently working through a society’s thinking on that relationship and trying to establish the right cost structures to place upon the market place. It seems as though public opinion is already beginning to change, and we are as close as ever to the creation of a sustainable form of economics; a form where clean air, water, and soil, as well as a living diverse ecosystem are given a fair market price and polluting practices are assessed their proper market cost.
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