Challenges related to implementing good environmental policy/ success stories
During this decade, the United States saw bipartisan environmental progress including the creation of the EPAThis phenomenon occurs when regulatory agencies become dominated by the industries they are supposed to regulate.
What were the 1970s?
This European intellectual movement emphasized emotion, spirituality, and the sacredness of nature, influencing early American preservationists.
What is Romanticism?
.This system allows buyers and sellers to exchange goods and services, with prices determined by supply and demand.
What is the market?
This moral concern arises when environmental goods like clean air, water, or carbon emissions are treated as commodities that can be bought and sold.
What is commodification of nature?
This country became a global leader in renewable energy after implementing feed-in tariffs through the Renewable Energy Sources Act.
What is Germany?
This American naturalist argued for protecting wilderness for its intrinsic value and helped found the Sierra Club.
Who was John Muir?
In a market, prices are mainly determined by these two forces.
What are supply and demand?
This ethical issue questions whether it is fair that market systems prioritize those with the greatest ability to pay rather than those most affected by environmental harm.
What is environmental injustice (or inequity)?
This political structure contributes to polarization because only two parties can realistically compete, increasing gridlock on environmental legislation.
What is the winner-take-all electoral system?
This conservationist believed in the scientific management of natural resources for long-term human benefit.
Who was Gifford Pinchot?
Classical economics assumes individuals make decisions logically to maximize benefits and minimize costs.
What is rational behavior (or rational choice)?
This concept refers to costs like pollution or climate damage that are not reflected in market prices but are imposed on society.
What are externalities?
This phenomenon occurs when regulatory agencies become dominated by the industries they are supposed to regulate.
What is regulatory capture?
This president signed major environmental legislation and created the EPA despite being a Republican.
Who was Richard Nixon?
Classical economists assume people act on their own ______ when making decisions.
What is self-interest?
This moral debate centers on whether it is acceptable to discount the well-being of future generations when making present-day economic decisions about climate change.
What is intergenerational justice?
This concept explains why fossil fuel infrastructure continues to dominate, despite past investments and commitments.
What is path dependency?
This era of reform in the early 20th century expanded the federal government’s role in regulating industry and natural resources.
What is the Progressive Era?
This economist is known as the founder of classical economics and wrote The Wealth of Nations.
Who is Adam Smith?
This criticism of carbon markets argues that allowing companies to buy emissions permits turns pollution into a purchasable right rather than a moral wrong.
What is the “right to pollute” critique of cap-and-trade?