Environmental Economics
ater is needed for life like few other natural resources. The Earth and the human body are both made up of more than 75% water, and they both require this simple concoction of one hydrogen and two oxygen atoms bonded strongly together more than anything except maybe sunlight. For millennia the water supply has been a constant. It did not cost anything, but it was always subject to vagaries such as disease and shortage due to drought. Now water is being bottled and sold, and the world water market has been estimated as worth $800 billion in U.S. currency. The bottled water industry and its effects in the small towns where the water is "mined" are the subjects of this video.

Throughout the video, average citizens talk about how water is used in their small towns and how that use is being usurped by profit-hungry corporations such as Nestle. Due….

Environmental Economics
Economics and Nature Conservation

From early childhood, one is taught of the importance of the surrounding environment in all human activities. Forests for instance are crucial sources of fresh air and clean water, as well as raw commodities that support life. Nevertheless, mankind continues to trash the woodlands, and as such jeopardize the future of the next generations. In a context in which next to 5 million hectares of forests are lost on annual basis due to deforestations and fires, causing a multitude of environmental, economic and social effects, the global authorities must intervene to better regulate the sector.

The modern day individual is characterized by a myriad of features, such as the reduced time to cook and the obvious tendency to either eat out, either grab some fast food. Other elements refer to the increased pace of technological development, with which he has to keep up; the incremental pressures on….

video Tapped. The video is a documentary detailing the situation in the bottled water industry in the United States of America. It highlights the economic issues raised throughout the video. The second part of the paper examines in detail these economic issues.
Video Summary

This video (Tapped), exposes the hard reality of the state of economic survival in the water industry. First, it portrays a scenario where great demand for bottled drinking water exists in the United States of America. The video suggests that bottled water companies make so much money every year. At one point, there is mention of Pepsi hauling over 400,000 gallons a day, an indication of the demand of this product in the U.S. market.

Secondly, the video highlights depletion of water as a resource. This is probably the main reason for the video. Fryebyrg, Maine, is shown one area enduring a water shortage because of Coca Cola's….

Political / Environmental Economics
The Gloucester Crisis: Environmentalists VS Fishermen?

Or: Depletion of Fisheries VS Fishermen Postponing Reality?

hen the spectacularly dramatic movie, "The Perfect Storm," became a box office smash a few years ago, it focused a tremendous amount of national and international attention on the hazards fishermen face far out to sea. By riveting so many moviegoers on the colossal waves that can rise up from the sea to smash down a fragile fishing boat, the film - and book - also brought attention to the New England fishing town from which the story was drawn, Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Indeed, much of "The Perfect Storm" was filmed along - and offshore from - Gloucester's windswept coastline, which is the nation's oldest seaport (established in 1623), just an hour's drive from Boston. And the film has attracted wave after wave of camera-toting tourists, who roll into town to visit the places they saw in….

Economics of Forestry
Timber is the major product currently harvested from forests. Timber is used in a variety of products ranging from houses to paper and paperboard products. Long ago it seemed as if the supply of wood from forests was abundant and as if there would always be enough to provide everything that we could possibly need. However, recently we have realized that this is not the case. Timber is a major source of income and has become necessary to sustain out life-style as we know it. There has been a clash of ideology between ecologists and economists. Ecologists point out that forests have many other benefits besides just providing timber and are quick to point out that we need them to reduce the level of green house gases and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Economists are equally as quick to point out that we need timber to sustain….

Meanwhile, Dwight R. Lee (writing in The Independent Review, 2001) points to a situation where a powerful environmental group (Audubon Society) has cooperated with an energy company and both have profited. Free market environmentalism has shown the way for profits and preservation at the same time in this case. The Audubon Society (AS) owns the 26,000-acre Rainey Sanctuary in the swamps of Louisiana, and while the group is opposed to oil drilling and gas drilling in 99 out of 100 cases, the AS has "been willing to accommodate the interests of those whose priorities are different" (Lee, p. 219). Those interests include allowing thirty-seven wells to be exploited for oil and gas in the Rainey Sanctuary.

According to Lee, the AS has received royalties of more than $25 million from those 37 wells, and in the meantime the technology used in the oil and gas development has prevented any spills or….

Economic Challenges Canada Faces
In recent years, the challenging economic condition in Canada has emerged as a concern for citizens, policy makers and the government alike. Canada faces challenges in terms of creating a more innovative society, as the country continues to experience a significant productivity gap compared to other advanced industrial economies. The Canadian industry appears to be slower in successfully developing, applying and marketing innovative products, processes and services than a majority of other nations. This lack of innovation is the cause of Canada's low productivity growth and competitiveness, and therefore must be addressed in order to increase employment growth, a higher standard of living and an improved quality of life for all Canadians.

Current research predicts that although Canada's economic performance will gradually strengthen out of the recent mild slowdown into a better pattern of growth in 2004, Canada's economy still faces the longer-term challenge of increasing productivity growth….

The need for the preservation of these resources is because of the fact that it is finite or limited. Abused utilization of these resources will deplete it and will eventually endanger the future inhabitants of the earth, leaving them nothing for the production of their own needs. Without the resources, there will be nothing to work on in the first place. Achievement of economic stability is the first step in order to achieve the other social goals. Since there are resources, there can be economic efficiency whereby goods can be produced at a lowest possible cost because of the availability of resources. Economic freedom or the right of a man to engage in voluntary economic activities, economic equity or justice particularly in terms of taxation and welfare economics, and economic security or security in employment can be settled between the government and the people in order to achieve them.….

Energy costs increased substantially and the yen's exchange rate was shifted to a floating rate. The eventual recession reduced expectations of future growth and reduced private investment. Economic growth went down from 10% to 3.6% during the period 1974-79 and to 4.4% in the decade of the 80s. ut despite the oil crisis and its consequences, Japan's major export industries stayed competitive through its cost-cutting policy and increasing efficiency. It reduced industrial energy demands and allowed the automobile industry, along with other industries, to improve. y the late 70s, the computer, semiconductor and other technology and information-intensive industries entered a period of rapid growth. During this high-growth era, exports continued to support Japan's robust economic growth in the 70s and in the 80s. However, the problems encountered on account of its growing balance of payments surplus urged for the opening of domestic markets and a stronger focus on domestic….

Thus, a region or nation experiencing economic depression will be unable to use the interest rate lever to boost the economy. Similarly a country with high inflation will be unable to independently raise interest rates to contain inflation. Moreover, Islamic countries, which form a large part of the geography, do not believe in interest rates.
Political barriers -- Political differences between nations make it extremely difficult for them to adopt a common currency. It can lead to a loss in political sovereignty as monetary interests would need to surpass political interests. This is unlikely to be acceptable to most of the nations and the idea of a single currency may be difficult to implement (Gimp, 2008).

Will Pros and Cons change Over Time? Depending On the Country?

The economic conditions to determine a monetary union depend on: the openness and size of the economy involved to trade; the free movements of capital….

Environmental Assessing Canada
More and more countries have gotten actively involved in protecting the environment and Canada makes no exception from the rule, taking into account that it installed a series of programs meant to assist nature and discourage individuals or groups that might be inclined to damage it. The Canadian Environmental Act is probably one of the most significant steps that the country has taken with the purpose of making it mandatory for people and communities to conduct environmental assessments for diverse projects that they propose. Canadians have acknowledged the fact that some actions might have negative effects on the environment and thus developed environmental assessments meant to remove or diminish a project's capacity to harm to environment.

The 1868 Fisheries Act is probably one of the first significant environmental assessment programs that the government installed with the purpose of preventing individuals from harming the environment as a result of implementing….

Ergo, the role of the EU seems to be that of implementing protectionist policies. These would be developed onto three simultaneous directions.
A first set of policies would revolve around the creation of a new market architecture at the EU level. This would strengthen the EU's position in the face of future challenges by:

ensuring a sustained and strong support from central banks allowing banks to rapidly implement the rescue plans, and allowing the Union to rapidly implement decisive methods that would prevent the expansion of the crisis to other countries (Commission of the European Communities, 2008).

A second set of strategies revolves around the necessity to really analyze the impacts the crisis has had upon the real economy and find ways in which to improve the real economy. These policies would combine short-term solutions to issues in need of rapid response as well as long-term projects. The short-term solutions would be….

ealth does not equate to happiness, a sense of purpose, dignity or respect. One of the key underlying assumptions of neoliberal philosophy, as derived from Milton Friedman, is that financial wealth is the ideal end goal of all activity. hile financial wealth solves many problems it does not solve all problems. Opponents of globalization, whatever their other arguments, incorporate this understanding into their protestations.
Naomi Klein goes further, suggesting that the unequal wealth distribution in the globalized economy is deliberate. The march towards globalization is not an altruistic endeavor borne of a firm belief in the power of the free market, but is a calculated strategy on the part of the world's elite to seize the world's wealth and power at whatever expense is necessary. Indeed, any economic benefits realized by the masses are incidental. Casualties -- be they citizens of Iraq, indigenous peoples or indeed any of the world's….

Environmental Case Study (Alberta's Oil Sands)
Alberta's Oil Sands represents one of the international environmental problems facing Canada and close to seventy countries across the globe. Albert's Oil Sands proves to be a new course of political conflict within the setting of Canada and at the international level. Oil Sands development is responsible for rapid economic growth of Alberta. This creates ethical or moral dilemma because there is a massive risk in association with the development of Oil Sands within the province. Oil Sands contribute towards ecological harm thus having a negative impact on the living conditions of the individuals in the province and the entire planet. This ethical dilemma leads to mobilization processes by environmental entities to help alleviate the situation. This is because some prominent political outfits such as Peter Lougheed recognize that the rate of the development of the oil sands in Alberta is not socially or economically….

Current events of the environmental ethics

Some of the major current events concerning the environmental ethics are the issue of global warming. One of the leading researchers (in the causes and effects of climate change; and in the field of allergies) in Europe has discovered that the burning of the fossil fuel that has increased over the recent past has resulted into the increase of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide facilitates the growth of the ragweed- an invasive plant- moreover; the hay fever is triggered of by this plant's pollen grains. Both early and long seasons of allergy are caused by the bloom of the birch trees as a result of the warmer temperatures (White, 1967).

Non-environmentally friendly behaviors currently such as the increased acts of war has not only affected the environment by impoverishing the natural resources but has also caused stress in the livelihood….