The Economy and the Environment

Economic growth and the attempts to facilitate it have, in many instances, sidelined environmentally sustainable policy if it means sacrificing the potential for economic development.

Yet, with climate change and its grave implications, can the world truly achieve sound economic growth at the expense of the environment?

When the future repercussions of environmental maltreatment could potentially outweigh the present improvements of economic growth, the growth is questionable.

A recent New York Times article explained the apathy about the environment as integral to the inherent nature of the human psyche; people perpetually subordinate that which looms in the future to the present.

The classic example that the article mentions is the tendency for people, when presented with the choice, to choose $10 today instead of $20 in two years.

Similarly, China has taken on a multitude of industrial projects that hold great potential for the depressed economy but nothing more than vast clouds of black smoke for the vulnerable atmosphere. China, in essence, has chosen the figurative $10 over the prospective $20.

By contrast, Costa Rica elected to combine the positions of energy minister and environment minister into one, which ensures that “cheap” energy equates both economic and environmental costs.

Costa Rica’s standards facilitate slightly less expeditious economic growth, but are sensible for both the economy and environment as much as 25 years in the future. If you haven’t followed the course of this analogy already, Costa Rica has chosen the figurative $20.

In a culture where the rational condemn procrastination and encourage time-management, as is especially exemplified by college students, policy that sweeps environmental concerns under the rug is comparable to leaving that 15-page paper until the night before its due date.

Both decisions undoubtedly explode in one’s face with noteworthy force.

Yet the difference between the repercussions of ignoring environmental concerns and those of the aforementioned hypothetical 15-page paper left until the eve of its due date is the impact of a collective interest versus individual interest.

The environment has been deemed the “global commons,” and as Garrett Hardin’s famous “Tragedy of the Commons” essay purports, commons without a sense of individual ownership will inevitably be collectively exploited without a singular culprit to place blame and responsibility upon.

In order to make an effective appeal to people about the potential hazards of pollution and non-sustainable lifestyles, the same sense of impending doom that a 15-page paper due in a matter of hours instills in an individual must be engrained in the entire world such that it can no longer be ignored.

Only strict laws or regulations can deter humans from continuing to exploit a region that they do not have personal responsibility over, not mere suggestion.

Therein lies the problem with environmental policy; it is seen as merely an option pitted against economic growth, or simply our own interest in convenience. In order for it to successfully flourish, being “green” can no longer be an option.

We can toss a beer can into a trash receptacle without real consequence and frequently see those who denigrate the non-recycling perpetrators as fanatical.

Our paradigms about the way we can treat this little planet that we reside on must drastically change in order to achieve true growth; economically, environmentally and rationally.

After all, the prospect of $20 is quite tempting.