Chapter summary

Patricia Dukes
XPA 504
December 1, 2016
Energy and the Environment – Chapter 13
This chapter has traversed over the broad topic, Energy, and the Environment. As noted by the authors, the Public Choice theory perceives the pollution of the environment as an externality of man`s activity. Governments, firms, and individuals often impose on others unwanted costs. As the chapter outlines, the environment is referred to as a common pool resource as its access is restricted since there are no property rights that are clearly defined to it. Accordingly, no one possesses a personal responsibility to care for it. The government, firms, and individuals thus normally use it to dispose of waste materials and by-products thereby generating externalities or unwanted costs on everyone. Nonetheless, the government is bestowed with a legitimate responsibility in managing the externalities in the environment. This is possible in several ways according to the public choice theory. The author observes that economic growth is compatible with the protection of the environment. Converse to this, the chapter outlines that wealth increases, as well as technology advances, offers the best hope towards a cleaner environment. Furthermore, it is pointed out that efficient risk reduction and pollution control ought to be balanced with its costs. In consequence, the environmental policies that have its costs exceeding the benefits will hamper the society’s efforts of dealing with the environmental problems effectively.

It should be noted that the costs associated with removal of additional environmental risks and pollutants increase as zero tolerance is approached. Besides these, the author observes that total pollutants elimination from ground water or air entails astronomical costs which waste society’s resources. It is also noted in this chapter that rational determination of costs and benefits associated with pollutants elimination from the environment needs scientific evidence. There has been deliberate scientific evidence rejection on the environmental concerns and the emotional or ideological inspiration to act on the absence of scientific information which makes policymaking not to be cost effective. Upon enactment of the environmental policies, the water, and air in the US significantly become cleaner as compared to the 1970s. Consequent improvement in the quality of water and air has taken place irrespective of the growth in waste products as well as population. However, according to the author, most of the Americans hold that environmental pollution is on the rise. Group interest activity, environmental crisis media coverage together with global doom predictions forms a climate of opinion which excludes cost and benefit analyses of the policies of the environment. As pinpointed in this chapter, a UN-sponsored International panel on climate change revealed that human activity is leading to an increase of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Likewise, in 1992 the United Nation`s sponsored Rio treaty as well as the follow-up Kyoto Protocol of 1997, applauded the signing nations to minimize the emissions of greenhouse gasses below the levels of 1990. Surprisingly, the US has neither ratified the treaty nor its protocol. Additionally, it is highlighted in this chapter that the energy sources of America are rapidly changing despite oil remaining to be the largest energy source. Their total energy percentage source is on a decline because of fracking natural gas which is expanding as the source of energy of America. Also, advances in drilling technology for instance fracking, significantly have led to an increase in the domestic sources of energy in America. Total reliance on the natural gas has also begun to reduce emissions of carbon iv oxide into the atmosphere.