ENVS 23

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

$2 trillion

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

$4.7 trillion

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

0.16%

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?

0.25%

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

20%

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

380,000

What proportion of Grameen Bank loans have been repaid?

95%

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

97%

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

Fine tune existing economic systems and tools.

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

GDP

Which of the following is an environmental indicator?

GPI

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

Goods and services

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

High discount rates can encourage rapid exploitation of resources for immediate payoffs.

Innovation-friendly regulation does which of the following?

Motivate companies to develop green products.

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

Producers of harmful products would have to charge more.

Which of the following is true about green taxes?

Seventy percent of voters support green taxes when they are explained.

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?

The middle class will continue to grow and per person consumption will increase.

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

They are almost always more (and often much more) than the actual costs of complying.

Why do markets often fail at environmental protection?

They do not assign a monetary value to the benefits provided by natural capital.

What proportion of the world's population lives in extreme poverty?

about one-fifth

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

boosts economic growth by increasing the flow of matter and energy resources through the economic system

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?

cost benefit analysis

What is a direct cost of driving a domestic car?

cost to manufacture

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

develop business schools that include sustainable business planning

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

discount rate

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?

ecological

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?

ecological

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

ecological

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) ____.

economy

Which of the following is a nonuse value?

existence value

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

green taxes

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

human capital

Ray Anderson is known for ____.

leasing carpets

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

manufactured capital

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

market price equilibrium

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 ____.

market price equilibrium point

The Grameen Bank specializes in providing ____.

microfinancing at very low interest rates

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

more than 6 million

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

natural capital

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?

neoclassical

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

neoclassical

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

neoclassical

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

not try to take business away from their competitors

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

optimum level of resource use

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

penalizes low-income groups unless safety nets are provided

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

pollution control

What is an indirect cost of car ownership?

pollution from production and use

What is an example of a service-flow economy?

providing document services instead of selling photocopiers

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

public services

The optimum level of pollution control is reached when ____.

the marginal cost of pollution control intersects with the marginal cost of pollution