Chapter 23: Economics, Environment, and Sustainability

Perverse subsidies

Lead to environmental damage and should be phased out.

Economic succession

New and more innovative businesses.

Economic growth

Increased capacity to supply goods and services, requires increased production and consumption, requires more consumers.

Natural capital

Includes resources and services produced by the earth's natural processes, which support all economies and all life

Human capital, human resources

Includes people's physical and mental talents that provide labor, organizational and management skills, and innovation

Manufactured capital, manufactured resources

Includes people's physical and mental talents that provide labor, organizational and management skills, and innovation

Economic growth

Increased capacity to supply goods and services, requires increased production and consumption, requires more consumers

Economic development

Improvement of living standards

Neoclassical economists

View the earths natural capital as part of a human economic system

Ecological economists

View human economic systems as subsystems of the biosphere, and believe that conventional economic growth will become unsustainable

Market price

Does not include indirect, external, or hidden costs

Full-cost pricing

Includes estimated costs of harmful environmental and health effects of production

Perverse subsidies

Lead to environmental damage and should be phased out

Greenwashing

Deceptive practice and spin of environmentally harmful products as green

Environmental regulation

Control pollution and reduce environmental degradation

Developed countries

spend 0.7% of the national budget toward these goals

Economic succession

New and more innovative businesses

Centrally Planned Economy

the government determines production and distribution

Free Market Economy

private individuals and companies determine production and distribution

Neoclassical Economists

view the earth's natural capital as a subset of a human economic system