What Environmentalists Need to Know About Economics

by Jason Scorse

Easy-to-read and filled with real-world examples of the most complex environmental challenges, this book demonstrates that sound economic analysis and reasoning can be one of the environmental community's strongest allies. This is sure to become an invaluable resource for students, environmental organizations, and policymakers.

Genres: Environment

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A concise summary of the tools and techniques that economists use to approach policy problems, followed by Scorse's recommended tactics for several serious environmental crises of the day. Depending on your preparation in economics, you might find the first half elementary and sketchy, or confusing.

By design, the book's argument is presented with virtually no math or figures; references and supporting material are in the backmatter. For the most part, his approach works.


Scorse is one for using all the tools in the box, as he weighs the strengths of cap and trade versus carbon taxes (both of them market-based solutions) to reduce greenhouse gases, while he comes down in favor of command and control approaches to deal with most problems of toxic chemical pollution.


I give him high marks for separating market efficiency issues from those of equity and distribution. His take on population growth is surprising. ("It is not accurate to claim that population growth is the root cause of environmental problems&emdash;it is specific types of consumption that drive environmental degradation." p. 154) His economist's skepticism about the prospects for REDD to combat deforestation is also noteworthy.

Scorse's avoidance of arithmetic lets him down when he ventures to explain future period discounting; the passage (p. 45) wobbles between murky and just wrong. (21.55% does not equal the 4th power of 0.05, but 1.2155 does equal the 4th power of [1 + 0.05].) And with such otherwise rich backmatter, the lack of an index is hard to justify.

[Soph Nova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this book was wildly disappointing (although I wasn’t expecting too much to begin with). It does provide a decent point-by-point explainer on various market-based solutions, but seems to think that these make the most sense because that’s all that’s politically and socially feasible. But there is a slight undercurrent of hoping for something better, which comes out in the author’s basically not terrible take on the population control solution of environmental issues, which he says is essentially a distraction from the resource-intensive consumption habits of wealthy people (which is essentially the Marxist analysis!). So close, and yet so far when it comes to saying that “command-and-control regulations should be a last resort in most cases”.

[Sarah Ford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very on the nose. Simple ideas given for complex problems.

[Empanadani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really great concise read. I did not read the notes at the end, though. This should be taken as good practical advice and knowledge about environmental economic policies, but I dont really agree with the underlying political premise.