Week 3 Discussion – Wed. Feb. 13 Please be prepared for a discussion of these questions based on the readings:
- As described in the reading, what is a ‘food desert’?
- Explain how industrialized agriculture contributes to the problem of cheap, unhealthy food?
- How does the widespread availability of unhealthy food has an environmental impact? Consider how the food is produced, the resources required, etc. What kinds of environmental problems does this contribute to?
- What are some of the economic costs created by industrialized agriculture?
- What are some of the economic and health costs of food deserts? ______________________________________
Week 2: 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.
- According to the reading, how can long-term economic growth be made more sustainable ?
- What are the costs and benefits associated with these steps? Post your responses in the box below.
In the text, it mentions that long term growth can only be made sustainable when income can be at it’s highest point or when people have enough money to support their needs. The cost and benefit to those steps were the increase in non-renewable resources and an increase in pollution.
In the text, it mentions that long term growth can only be made sustainable when income can be at it’s highest point or when people have enough money to support their needs. The cost and benefit to those steps were the increase in non-renewable resources and an increase in pollution.
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. Long term economic growth can be made more sustainable through different factors. One of which is through the social aspect of how we tend to measure success through economic growth mainly because it brings new jobs. That is an invalid indicator for measuring economic growth. It does not value other things like quality of peoples lives or the quality of the environment. We need to get the world out of the delusion that we have unlimited resources because we dont and thats how the world is operating. Thats what economic growth has been depending on taking resources, using them and throwing them away without trying to reuse or recycle. There needs to be a major shift away from coal usage and only governments can really have an impact on that. Governments around the world need to play a bigger part in enabling long term economic growth by making companies and investors allocate more resources to finding innovative solutions. We need to get the rich and the wealthy to start caring before its too late because when they start acting big changes will actually take place.
1. Long term economic growth can be made more sustainable by investigating whether or not optimal growth is always sustainable growth and seeing if the costs of the growth outweigh the benefits of the growth.
2. The costs and benefits associated with these steps are if the costs of growth outweigh the benefits of growth, then it is unsustainable and may make things worse in terms of the environment for example, worsening income distribution, longer commute times, and unattractive cities. The benefits may include improved transportation, better communication, and higher standards of living.
The concept of sustainable development involves economic, social and environmental factors. The economy focuses on the human well-being and improving human welfare by increasing the consumption of goods and services. The environmental domain emphasizes on protecting the natural world. The social domain focuses on human relationships and achievements as an individual or group. Sustainable development is defined as the process for improving opportunities that will provide individuals better chances to achieve their goals and aspirations, while maintaining an stable economy and environment. According to the reading, there are a few ways to make economic growth more suitable; the first way to generate economic growth is to increase the labor force, therefore more goods and services will be produced. A second way is to create superior technology or other capital goods, such as savings and investments since they are necessary to engage development. Lastly, discovering better economic resources such as petroleum to boost the economy.
The benefits of increasing the labor force is that it will generate more employment opportunities which enables the reduction of unemployment, in the other hand it would have negative effects such as high cost of life and other human necessities (food, clothing, shelter). The use of new technology could be more environmental friendly, however, in the long-run the use of some non-renewable resources could harm the environment and contribute to scarcity. Another benefit of economic growth is an increase in tax revenues and higher average income that can lead to overpopulation in the areas of growth causing pollution due to the excess use of natural resources.
According to page 159, second paragraph,
“The empirical results support growing concerns that the costs of economic growth may outweigh its benefits, resulting in unsustainability. Environmental costs and benefits have more impact on sustainability, although economic costs and benefits are also important. Basically, it has been determined that in a wide range of circumstances, long term economic growth is unsustainable due to increasing environmental costs.”
According to the reading, “perpetual economic growth is unsustainable.” However, there are a number of variables policy makers can explore to make economic growth more sustainable. The most feasible examples are government supported abatement programs. Wherever the abatement do not exist, long term economic growth is not sustainable. Abatement of pollution or strategies that counteract environmental contamination are necessary to improve ecosystem and the long term viability of the environment.
The steps toward long term sustainable growth both economically and environmentally calls for specific steps to be built in to models and frameworks when looking at scenarios for economic growth. According to page 150, they include the consideration of environmental costs and benefits when evaluating economic growth strategies, model where social and environmental costs and benefits are operationally embedded, integrating indicators of how the results of optimal economic growth are deliberately linked to environmental sustainability over the long term and policies that reinforce the linkages between economic and environmental sustainability.
According to reading, the costs and benefits associated with abatement strategies in the various models in the article show that the benefits of abatement are substantially higher than the costs.
Governments are the typically the biggest employers and purchasers of goods and services and can set the precedent by implementing policies that reinforce the linkage between environmental and economic growth. According to The Guardian article, governments play a critical role in setting policies that both monitor environmental threats and economic growth. Governments also have the authority to implement and reinforce policies, such as taxing businesses that contribute to environmental depletion in order for economic growth. Where these businesses contribute to the environmental contamination, governments can reinforce through mandates that these businesses simultaneously invest in abatement strategies to remediate the contamination and any long-term environmental issues.
Long term economic growth can be made sustainable by “maximizing the flow of income or consumption that could be generated while at least maintaining the stock of assets” according to the reading. This could partially improve human quality of life as sustainable development ultimately relies on economic, environmental and social points of views. However, if there is an increase in economic development then it outweighs the other major pillars. If there were to be an increase in incomes, people would purchase more vehicles or other forms of technology that could increase pollution in the environment and will create the conflict of income inequality. This would be the cost of economic sustainability which is higher than the benefits.
1. According to the reading, long – term economic growth can be sustained by various factors. The concept has evolved into three main viewpoints, one of which is economic, that focused primarily on improving human well – being, in particular by increasing the consumption of goods and services. Second, the environmental domain focuses on protecting the integrity and resilience of ecological systems. The third is the social which highlights the improvement of human relations and the achievement of the aspirations of individuals and groups.
2. In the reading, recent studies suggest that economic growth costs are higher than their benefits. Typical costs include problems with urbanization, worsening income distribution, commuting, and hideous cities, while improved transport, communications, and living standards are the benefits. If costs exceed benefits and growth is unsustainable, it would be desirable to restructure growth in order to achieve positive net benefits. As far as the environment is concerned, the costs include pollution and the reduction of natural resources and biodiversity, while the benefits include technological innovation and less harmful extraction of resources, replacement of scarce natural resources and reduction of pollution. Alternatively, the result is unsustainable and impoverishing if the environmental costs of economic growth exceed the benefits.
“Food desert” is the term used to describe low-income neighborhoods throughout the United States where little or no healthy, fresh vegetables are available but where low-quality high-energy fast food is readily available. This term is described in the article, Food Deserts: A Global Crisis in New York City, where the problem is found to be particularly egregious in neighborhoods where the residents are people of color and low-income.
The federal government exacerbates the situation of food deserts through their subsidies to industrialized agriculture, usually corn and soy. However, these grains are the most used as the main ingredients in cheap, unhealthy food contributing to the unhealthy food problem.
The widespread availability of unhealthy food drives demand and adds to the cycle of production. Mass agricultural production requires mass use of fertilizers and pesticides that can pollute waterways and threaten crop biodiversity and increases energy and agricultural input prices.
The economic and health cost of industrialized agriculture and food deserts are intricately linked. Industrialized agriculture promotes food deserts which causes obesity and other chronic health conditions. Crop yields have not increased since the 1990s despite the increase in worldwide population. Industrialized agriculture pollutes the environment mainly because of the petroleum-based pesticides which leach toxins into food sources and extinguishes biodiversity. Monocropping or repetition of the same species of plants, as is the usual practice of industrial agriculture, depletes soil quality and causes soil degradation and desertification.