Environment and Society ? Chapters 2-8 ? Environmental Geography

I find this book to be very interesting and relevant to my studies here at Ohio Wesleyan. With the Environmental Studies major we discuss and view different perspectives of the state of the world, which can be very complicated. With the Economic major, we also view these subjects with the economic standpoint, and this book melts these two subjects together. It is also extremely related to my Environmental Economics class that I am currently taking. The more one knows and understands about different perspectives, the more difficult these decisions pertaining with the environment becomes; however these different perspectives make forming ones own opinion much easier.

I agree that each company/entity should be accountable for their actions, and the only way to make sure this happens is to privatize most of these public goods. For example the fishing industry should use some mechanism of privatization, like permits or private fishing zones for instance. Although I realize this has been done in a lot of areas, and places like international waters are hard/impossible to ?privatize?, doing so would make the fishing communities responsible for ?their? fish. If they were to over-fish one year, the repercussions would be felt the next. These permits would also have to last for several years, such as 30, to keep the fishermen liable for their actions. These permits could also be transferable, such as the cap and trade system for carbon emissions. These private organizations would also be able to come together and negotiate what is best for the ?privately common? good, further ensuring the upkeep of the natural goods ? Like the Maine lobstermen example given in the text. Plus there is no debate who would be able to work faster to fix problems and make important decisions ? government or private ? the answer is undoubtedly private.

The down-side of this system is the possible monopolization of this tactic, and also the ?common? aspect of these areas. Places like lakes and oceans are not technically owned by anyone and are often used for recreational fishing, boating, swimming etcetera. The privatization of this, such as private beach clubs and fishing permits, takes away these ?common? areas for people on vacation or the locals. Big fishing companies would undoubtedly buy up these permits, pushing fishing towns in the hole and ruining mom and pop communities.

One part of the book I did not agree with was the uneven distribution of pollution. One because the world really is not that large, what we do in America is felt around the world. Two, where do all of our old computers and televisions go to? ? third world countries. And finally, why should other countries even have to deal with our waste to begin with, they did not make the waste nor do our actions benefit them, so why should they feel the brunt of it. I think instead we, and the world, need to worry about what we do ourselves and how we can make little changes to benefit the earth and in time ourselves. Talk is cheap however ? everyone knows what we should do, I don?t see many people doing it.

?

Like this:

Be the first to like this post.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 at 8:02 pm and is filed under Readings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://environmentalgeography.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/environment-and-society-chapters-2-8/

il divo il divo jon huntsman bliss miss universe 2011 miss universe 2011 augmentin