Growing concerns about the environment’s well-being has become a focal point for many governments all over the world. Governments have allocated a substantial amount of resources and capital in an attempt to reduce pollution. Air pollution has led to harmful health effects and a depletion of the ozone layer. The depletion of the ozone layer results in higher levels of UVB reaching the Earth’s surface. This added UVB has been linked with increased cases of cataracts and melanoma development (epa.gov). Government regulations on pollution are costly to the tax payers and to the companies that must abide by these regulations. To reduce the expense of pollution reduction, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein suggest a different governmental approach to improve upon the standard already in place. In Chapter 12 on saving the planet, Thaler and Sunstein use the ideas of choice architecture and gentle nudges to expand the effort of protecting the environment by creating better incentives and feedback.
To control pollution levels, government regulators use a command and control regulation that does not allow flexibility for individuals or companies. Mandates are set that demand a certain reduction in pollution emissions. This lack of freedom of choice, obstructs the concept of libertarian paternalism that Thaler and Sunstein promote. “If the goal is to protect the environment, might good choice architecture be able to help?” (186). Better choice architecture would allow for individuals and companies to have the freedom of choice in regards to environmental protection and would nudge them towards a path better suited to solve the problems with pollution of the environment. The reasons for these environmental problems are that incentives are ins...
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...cern of many governments across the globe. Thaler and Sunstein suggest that reduction of pollution and the cost associated with this action can be achieved by improving incentives and feedback of environmental protection through better choice architecture and gentle nudges. I agree with many of the suggestions in this chapter on improving feedback of the actions that have negative environmental consequences. I think I will start being more aware of the impact my choices have on the environment. I could start looking at the disclosures of the companies I buy from and see what impact they have on the environment. I may also start purchasing products that are more energy efficient and advantageous in the long run. Even though these products may be more costly in the short run, I know I will be awarding the companies that are innovating technology for pollution control.
Today, we take many of our natural resources for granted without think about the consequences. For example, cutting down trees, burning fossil fuel, and the consumption of meat. Our ozone layer is becoming weaker and weaker to due factories burning too much fossil fuel. This causes too much carbon dioxide, which affects our ozone layer. If we can limit the amount of natural resources we use on a daily basis, we will be able to see a big change in society.
The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA is the result of a 1970 executive order by President Richard Nixon for the purpose of protecting the environment of the United States through regulation on business and citizens. Public opinion on the Environmental Protection Agency has been divided fairly evenly across the population of the United States as of recently, as compared to the widespread public concern of the 50’s and 60’s that led to the agency’s creation. Recently the agency has come under scrutiny for its contributions of millions of dollars in grants to researchers in order to hide the potential trade off of its actions in order to further the agency’s agenda. The EPA’s ever-expanding regulation could end up harming more than it actually
This rhetorical analysis essay describes how reducing carbon emissions that cause pollution and other harmful effects on the environment and the lives of the people can attain a clean environment. It is based on Andrew C. Revkin’s article Carbon-Neutral is Hip, but is it Green? This article explains how carbon-neutral companies reduce carbon emissions. The companies’ work is to estimate the amount of greenhouse gases that are produced by different bodies like big businesses, international banks and transportation sectors. The effects are then sold to these emitting parties who pay for projects such as algae fertilization and tree plantation that could absorb the emitted gases. The argument of the author of this article is in agreement with what most environmentalists claim.
The new mechanism = the crowd instead of the old centralized organizations plus the new driver = the quality instead of profit eventually leads to a new highly participatory society redefining our own relationship to the environment.
This case focuses on corporate obstacles to pollution prevention. Pollution prevention can complex especially for large corporations. There are many different forms of pollution prevention including emissions control devices and incremental changes in existing technology. The author reviews the impact of emissions controlled devices, however the focus of the case study is on incremental changes in existing technology. Incremental changes include substituting one or two steps in a production process or relationship changes between production steps. One example of incremental changes that was provided by the author was eliminating chlorofluorocarbons and saving energy by replacing a refrigeration process with a heath exchanger that can exploit waste cooling from another part of the process. There are three critical decision-making stages for incremental changes; identifying a pollution prevention opportunity, finding a solution appropriate to that opportunity, and implementing that solution. The author discusses the three aspects of an organization (culture, ability to process information, and its politics) and how they impact the decision-making stages.
Air pollution is an ongoing and serious problem. From Mexico to Argentina, pollutants in the air have reached dangerous levels, with implications for both public health and the planet’s changing climate (Maxwell). There are many solutions that can be used; there are international standards that can be adopted in Latin America, clean transportation and energy generation technologies. If those who govern the countries within Latin America work to get their countries off of dirty fossil fuels, the skies will clear up and their people will breath freely. For example, “the Chilean Environmental Superintend has taken significant steps against big polluters, forty-nine sanction proceedings are underway this year, with only one acquittal. The firms in question are required to invest time and money in fo...
With regards to environmental policy, it is important for governments to consider concepts such as risk, economic efficiency and cost-benefit. A common concern voiced by proponents of regulatory reform in recent decades has been that the costs associated with certain regulations outweigh the benefits that the regulations are intended to provide (Tengs &Graham, 1996). Another, and somewhat related, view is that, more intelligent regulatory policies could achieve the same social goals (e.g., cleaner environment, safer workplaces) at less cost, or could achieve more ambitious goals at the same cost (Tengs &Graham, 1996). For the reasons above, Federal Agencies, have invested in using tools such as the cost benefit analysis and risk assessment to minimize eventual risks of excessive costs and negative environmental impact. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and determine whether tools such as the risk assessment and cost benefit analysis are invaluable tools and important ingredients in environmental policymaking.
Laws are often changing. A law needs to keep up with the changing views and values of a society. Things like events and technology are just two examples of what may produce a law or a change to a law. A law would need to accommodate a technology to regulate it for safety and how it’s used. Events also need to be regulated by law for safety and if it was a terrible event (9/11), then a law, or laws, are needed to prevent it from happening again. Laws pertaining to the environment are always changing because human interaction with the environment is always changing, whether its pollution, hunting, or overusing resources, these things need to be constantly regulated. This paper describes how the Clean Air Act developed and changed. The
Our government spent many years working on environmental issues to help keep our country a better, cleaner place. It wasn't until December 2, 1970 that Richard Nixon officially created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set under the executive branch. It's duties were to establish and enforce environmental protection standards consistent with national environmental goals.
in an effort to solve problems, which can be seen with the Clean Water Act.
In our daily lives we come across people that often wish at some point to go live in country sides. This usually occurs because in cities or industrial areas one is constantly exposed to pollution. In economics, environmental pollution is an example of social cost, and it is often defined as a negative externality. In other words, pollution negatively affects first, second and third party organizations as well as individuals, which incur additional economic costs, also called transaction costs. However, “pollution” is a very general term, this is because there are many ways that individuals or firms can damage the environment. Consequently, there are
Our Congress created the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969 in order to establish an environmental foundation for mankind. This policy endorses harmony between humans and the vast ecosystems surrounding them. To obtain this goal and provide our future with resources as well, NEPA is separated into two titles. The first title declares the policy in detail while the second title focuses on the Council on Environmental Quality. The CEQ oversees the effectiveness of current methods, the reactions of the environment to those methods, and implements revisions as necessary.
United States being a federal system, large number of decisions is not only made by the Federal, but also by state and local governments. Government uses various tools like Law, services, money, taxes, other economic instruments and suasion to influence policies. These tools are unique to the Government and may not be available to private parties. Peters suggest that a huge amount of money flows through the government and it gets redistributed to different people in forms of goods and services (Peters, 2013). Since governments have the resource and rights to influence social agendas, Government has to be involved in policy making. Since public policies are results of collaborations between various groups and backgrounds, the environmental factors contribute as an uncontrollable attribute to policy making. These environmental factors that affect policy making
Regulations provide the baseline environmental standards that industry is required to follow. Without environmental regulations, industry would not be able to meet the same standards by themselves. Environmental regulations may not always be in the best interest of the industry due to their costly and sometimes prohibitive nature. In response to these concerns, the establishment of incentive programs increases the likelihood of industry complying with and potentially exceeding the minimum environmental standard. Incentive programs motivate industry to meet and exceed environmental standards by allowing them to benefit financially by aiming for higher than regulation