Module 4 Flashcards
Understanding the ____ and ____ of the environment is necessary to develop effective and appropriate environmental management and policy measures.
Trends and State
Without understanding the trends and state, significant uncertainty makes policy development challenging due to?
- unknown benefits and costs, therefore, unknown objectives
- lack of political will to form policy
- opportunities for lobbying and rent-seeking behaviour
What is rent-seeking behaviour?
Refers to the practice of individuals or entities seeking to increase their own wealth without creating societal wealth or benefits.
Environmental indicators are designed to measure trends related to significant aspects of the environment including?
- measure environmental progress and performance
- monitor management changes and policy effectiveness
What are the two major functions of environmental indicators?
- Reduce the number of measurements and parameters that would normally be required to give an exact presentation of a situation—the indicator set needs to be limited.
- Simplify the communication process by which measurement results are provided to the user - considered an expression of the best knowledge available.
A common framework for developing and identifying indicators is called the ___?
Pressure-State-Response framework
What does pressure represent as part of the pressure-state-response framework? Provide some examples of pressure.
Pressure represents environmental stresses that may influence the system’s important aspects or productivity - risk indicators.
- selection of crops and management practices used for agricultural production
- technology used for harvesting fish/trees
- patterns of energy use that impact the environment.
What does State/Outcome represent as part of the pressure-state-response framework? Provide some examples of State indicators.
State/Outcome represents the ultimate impact of the management or production activity on the environment’s health.
- Soil quality
- Air quality
- Water quality
- Biodiversity
What does Response represent as part of the pressure-state-response framework? Provide some examples of Response indicators.
The response represents the actions and management decisions made to address the impact of economic development on the environment.
- Adoption of no-till
- Allocation of land to habitat
- Sales of fuel-efficient vehicles
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
GDP = consumer expenditure + business investment + government spending - net exports
Net Domestic Product (NDP)
NDP = GDP - capital depreciation
What things are not captured in GDP?
- national well-being determined by social and environmental factors
- inequality
- political participation
- education
- clean air and water
GDP measures market activity which is not well-being
Green adjusted GDP
GDP - Dm - Dn
- Dm: depreciation of manufactured capital
- Dn: depreciation of natural capital (renewable natural resources, non-renewable natural resources)
Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) is an indicator that adjusts for?
- income inequality
- value of unpaid work
- subtracts estimates of defensive expenditures (expenses associated with cleaning up pollution or attempting to repair or compensate for other environmental damage)
- adjusts for natural resource depletion and long-term environmental damage.
Who developed the concept of the ecological footprint?
Wackernagel and William Reese (1996)
What is an ecological footprint?
Calculate the area of biologically productive space required per person to maintain the person’s current lifestyle.
Incorporates how much land is required for food production, housing, transportation, consumer goods, and services.
What is the largest single component of the ecological footprint, and how much is attributable to it?
Energy consumption (50%)
