Economics, Environment, And | Test Questions & Answers Ch.23

CHAPTER 23—ECONOMICS, ENVIRONMENT, AND SUSTAINABILITY

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. In 2012, what percentage of its total electricity did Germany generate using wind farms?

2. In 2011, solar energy provided electricity for how many German homes?

3. Since 2000, how many jobs have been generated by Germany’s switch to renewable energy?

4. A social institution through which goods and services are produced, distributed, and consumed to satisfy people’s needs and wants, ideally in the most efficient way possible is a(n) ____.

5. Which of the following includes services and resources produced by the earth's natural processes?

6. Which of the following refers to tools and materials such as machinery, materials, and factories?

7. Which of the following refers to people’s physical and mental talents that provide labor, organizational and management skills, and innovation?

8. A free-market system operating without government interference requires that sellers ____.

9. Markets do well in the production and distribution of private goods, but are not so good at ____.

10. Why do markets often fail at environmental protection?

11. The point at which the supplier's price matches what buyers are willing to pay for some quantity of a good or service is called the ____.

12. The central characteristic of a high-throughput economy is that it ____.

13. Which school of economics views the earth’s natural capital as a subset, or part, of a human economic system?

14. Which school of economics assumes that the potential for economic growth is essentially unlimited and is necessary for providing profits for businesses and jobs for workers?

15. Which school of economics views human economic systems as subsystems of the biosphere that depend heavily on the earth’s irreplaceable natural resources and ecosystem services?

16. Which school of economics contends that conventional economic growth eventually will become unsustainable because it can deplete or degrade various irreplaceable forms of natural capital?

17. Which school of economics considers natural capital to be important but not indispensable?

18. Which school of economics warns that human economic systems could exceed the capacity of the environment to handle the pollutants and wastes we produce?

19. Some economists warn that, even if the population stabilizes, the environmental impact per person is likely to increase. Which is the best explanation for why would that happen?

20. What is a strategy recommended by environmental economists to help make the transition away from unsustainable economic growth?

21. Your text indicates that economic systems take natural capital and produce the following outputs. Which of these is considered to be a positive output?

22. Consider a graph in which demand and supply intersect. What would the point of intersection be called?

23. A team of ecologists and economists estimated the yearly ecological services provided by the earth's forests amount to ____.

24. Which of the following is a nonuse value?

25. Economists use ____ to estimate a resource's future economic value compared to its present value.

26. What is an argument against the use of high discount rates?

27. The optimum level of pollution control is reached when ____.

28. The point at which the marginal cost of resource production meets the marginal benefit of resource use is called the ____.

29. What is an economic decision-making tool that involves determining who/what may be affected, projecting outcomes, and then establishing who benefits or who is harmed?

30. What is true of many industry estimates of the costs associated with pollution control regulations?

31. What is an indirect cost of car ownership?

32. What is a direct cost of driving a domestic car?

33. A car buyer and others in society, pay hidden costs of car ownership in the form of which of the following costs?

34. Which of the following is an environmental indicator?

35. The traditional measurement of the annual economic value of all goods and services within a country is called the ____.

36. What is an argument against the use of full-cost pricing?

37. Subsidies and tax breaks for environmentally harmful businesses cost the world’s taxpayers what amount per year?

38. Which of the following is true about green taxes?

39. Innovation-friendly regulation does which of the following?

40. Levying taxes on each unit of pollution discharged into the air or water is an example of ____.

41. What is an example of a service-flow economy?

42. Ray Anderson is known for ____.

43. A drawback to implementing environmental taxes and fees is that it ____.

44. Developed countries, in the year 2000, pledged to devote 0.7% of their national income toward reducing hunger and poverty and moving toward environmental sustainability. What is the average actual amount donated by these countries?

45. At what level has the United States donated to the Millennium Development Goals, established in the year 2000?

46. What proportion of the world’s population lives in extreme poverty?

47. The Grameen Bank specializes in providing ____.

48. What proportion of Grameen Bank loans have been used by women?

49. What proportion of Grameen Bank loans have been repaid?

50. Making the shift to more sustainable economies will require governments, schools, and industries to ____.

1. Neoclassical economists assume that the potential for economic growth is unlimited.

2. In a truly free-market economic system no company or small group of companies would control the prices of any goods or services.

3. A discount rate is the estimate of a resource's future economic value compared to its present value.

4. After the easily removed natural resource, such as coal, has been taken, the cost of removal goes up with each additional unit of the resource taken. This is called the marginal cost.

5. The best solution for pollution is always total cleanup.

6. The market price you pay for something does not include most of the costs related to harm to the environment and human health associated with the production of the product.

7. The Genuine Progress Indicator adds to the GDP the estimated values of benefits not included in market transactions and subtracts the harmful environmental and social costs.

8. Full-cost pricing would discourage producers from inventing more resource-efficient methods of production, thereby cutting production costs.

9. In Europe and the United States, 70% of people surveyed indicated they support green taxes.

10. The cap and trade system is a market-based approach to pollution in which a permit holder not using its entire allocation of acceptable levels of pollution can sell them to other companies.

11. The repayment rate at the Grameen Bank on microloans is about 4550%.

12. Kramer and Brownell started the SOIL program in Haiti.

13. A low-throughput economy is a more sustainable economy.

14. The solar energy generates twice as many jobs as the nuclear energy industry.

15. Changing to a recycling and reuse economy will enable us to meet the needs of an ever-growing population indefinitely.

1. Three types of capital are used to produce goods and services: __________ capital; __________ capital; and __________ capital.

2. Experience shows markets cannot be relied upon to provide adequate levels of ____________________.

3. Ecological economists and ____________________ view economic systems as subsystems of the biosphere.

4. ____________________ pricing is the inclusion of the harmful environmental and health effects of producing economic goods and services in the market prices.

5. Comparing estimated costs and benefits for actions such as implementing a pollution control regulation is called a(n) ____________________.

6. The annual economic value of all goods and services produced within a country, regardless of whether they are beneficial or harmful, is the ____________________.

7. One idea for reducing pollution and resource waste is to shift from the current material-flow economy to a(n) ____________________.

8. When implementing ____________________ taxes, governments should enforce a safety net for poor and middle class citizens.

9. The coal industry spent $45 million on an ad campaign to plant the phrase “clean coal” in the minds of Americans even though coal remains a dirty fossil fuel. This is an example of a practice known as _______________ .

10. Environmentalists think that ____________________ regulations can encourage companies to develop green products and processes that can create jobs and increase company profits.

11. Japan, France, and Belgium have phased out all ____________________ and Germany plans to do so by 2018.

12. ____________________ has numerous harmful health and environmental effects and reducing it would benefit individuals, economies, and the environment.

13. As more high-throughput economies develop, resource consumption will ____________________ the capacity of the environment to provide sufficient renewable resources.

14. Donella Meadows contrasted the beliefs of neoclassical economists and ecological economists this way: "Economics discounts the future The earth says: Never ____________________ in your generation than you ____________________ to the next."

15. As new and more innovative businesses replace older ones that can no longer thrive under changing economic conditions in a dynamic capitalist economy, ____________________ occurs.

1. What U.S. expenditure could we eliminate in the right hand part of the figure that would pay to protect tropical forests worldwide?

2. What was the budget for the U.S. military for the year 2008?

3. What percentage of the U.S. military budget is the Total Earth Restoration Budget?

4. The U.S. agency with responsibility for protecting the environment is the EPA. What were the EPA expenditures for the year 2008?

5. How much money did Americans spend on potato chips and similar snacks in the year 2008?

1. Identify and discuss the three types of capital.

2. Discuss arguments for and against setting high discount rates.

3. Discuss and provide examples of how subsidies can be economically harmful.

4. The United States gives a large sum of money to charitable causes. However, when compared to our national income, our giving is quite low. For example, the United States gives 0.16% of its national income to help poor countries, while Sweden gives nearly six times that much. Is it in our best interest to increase our giving to poor countries? In your discussion, relate your answer to such issues as environmental degradation, unbridled natural resource use, and the concept of “stealing from future generations.”

5. Summarize Donella Meadows’ comparison of neoclassical and ecological economics.