Read Sardar M.N. Islam, Mohan Munasinghe, Matthew Clarke. “Making long-term economic growth more sustainable: evaluating the costs and benefits” and post your answers to the following questions. You may also comment on other students’ responses as well.
- According to the reading, what actions are recommended to make long-term economic growth be made more sustainable?
- Identify some of the costs and benefits associated with these steps? Post your responses in the box below.
1) Some actions that are recommended to make economic resources more sustainable is to take resources process combining them buying/selling them, using them and throwing away what’s left; then moving on to repeat the cycle. This relies on new resources and a continued stream of support services provided by the natural word for example, clean water, fertile soil, a stable climate, pollination, clean air. Another action is a framework called sustainomics to make unsustainable activities be recognized and eliminated and seeks continuing improvements in the present quality of life. Actions can also be building better cities and jobs
2) There are two cost and benefits associated
A) Environmental cost and benefits. The cost include pollution and reduction of natural
resources and biodiversity while benefits include technological innovation and less
damaging resource extraction substitution away form scarce natural resource and
pollution abatement
B) Social Cost and Benefits. The cost include problem of urbanization, worsening income
distribution, commuting and ugly cities. The benefits include improved transport,
communications, and standard of living. If cost exceed benefits and growth becomes
unsustainable it would be desirable to reconstruct growth
1) According to the reading, the traditional issues such as economic stagnation, persistence poverty, hunger, malnutrition and illness demand action. Some recondamation to make economic resources more sustainable is to provide clean water, fertile soil, which lead to a stable climate also clean air which will reduce pollution, building better cities will provide job for peoples .
2
A) The cost include pollution and reduction of natural resources and biodiversity while benefits include technological innovation and less damaging resource extraction substitution away form scarce natural resource and pollution abatement.
B) The cost include problem of urbanization, worsening income distribution, commuting . The benefits include improved transportation, communications, and standard of living. If cost exceed benefits and growth becomes unsustainable it would be desirable to reconstruct growth.
1. Economic growth can be made more sustainable by the government focusing on the environment and its preservation. It was stated in “Making long-term economic growth more sustainable: evaluating the costs and benefits” that the concept of sustainable development can be divided into three domains which are economic, environmental, and social. The economic domain was involved with improving human welfare/well-being. The environmental domain emphasized the protection of ecological systems, and the social domain was focused on human relationships. By focusing on the three domains rather than the government carelessly trying to maximize revenue and GDP, economic growth can be made more sustainable not just in the present but in the long term.
2. Looking at the economical domain, as stated in the article “Progress is measured in term of Welfare”, or the willingness to pay for goods and services consumed, a step to making long term economic growth more sustainable would be to reduce the overproduction of goods. A cost of this step would be to cut down on consumer spending which in effect would slow down the present-day economic growth. A benefit of this step would be that future economic growth would be more sustainable. Alice Chapple stated in her article that “economic growth has been dependent on taking resources……Globally, we are now using resources at a rate 50% faster than we can replace them.” (Chapple, 2) Continuing with this economic system would lead to an economy failure when we use up all of our available resources. Looking at the social domain, a step to making economic growth more sustainable was the abatement of pollution. A cost of this step would be to spend more money on abatement programs to properly dispose of waste. A benefit associated with abatement is that we’d be helping the environment by reducing green house gas emissions and also help people. For example, the improper disposal of electronic waste has a negative effect on some third world countries such as contaminating water supply, and the people are exposed to harmful components and chemicals in electronic waste.
1. According to the reading, a few ways to make a long term environment sustainable is by social sustainability. If we’re able to keep a social sustainability but we try to reduce the resources that we take for granted; in the long run we are able to clean up pollution and help the earth, it can also help human health.
2. For social sustainability, the economy might lose some profit because we are trying to minimize the resources it gets or should sell because the less they use factories the better the environment will be. In the long run, it will also help the human bodies because you will start breathing in harmful chemicals. For the environment it will be better because we’re saving wild life, trees, and cleaning the water.
1.In order for long term economic growth to be more sustainable, governments, businesses, and individuals must be proactive. Businesses can utilize resources more efficiently by developing and utilizing substitutes for scarce resources. Governments can act by providing incentives for businesses and investors to utilize more innovative solutions. Through the recognition and elimination of unsustainable activities, resources will be utilized at a lower intensity, therefore improving present quality of life without diminishing resources for future generations. According to the readings, economic growth accompanied by reduced pollution and increased substitution away from natural resources is likely to be more sustainable.
2.Social costs associated with the growth model include worsening income distribution, urbanization, and ugly cities. Associated social benefits include improved communication, standard of living, and transport.
Environmental costs include reduction of natural resources, biodiversity, and pollution. Associated environmental benefits include, substitution away from scarce natural resources, less damaging resource extraction, technological innovation and pollution abatement.
1. According to the reading, we should make some actions to have a sustainable long term economic growth, is to try to minimize scarcity for resources, we can do this by having a more sustainable environment, this means having clean water, fertile soil, stable climate, pollination, clean air, with this having in mind will helps us to create an environment with more resources and less scarcity, and this way we will have resources for the future economy, because we are equalizing the environment, this means we are taking what we are giving.
2. Benefits of taking this steps into account is that we will have more healthy environment, because we are trying to give to the nature what we are taking, but at the same time, the bad thing about this is that this means that we will have to have limitations at the time of production, because we are going to be limited, to a certain value og good only, because if we exceed that we will taking more from what the nature can give us.