Wednesday, September 12, 2007 Osmeña: Pollution is an economic problem By Antonio V. Osmeña Estatements
THE words “economics” and “ecology” come from the same Greek root, oikos, meaning “house” or “home.”
Ecology is the study of our earthly home - an analysis of interactions among species and between species and their environment. Economics literally means “household management.”
Today, economy refers to the study of principles and customs that affect the production, consumption, growth and distribution of material wealth for human needs.
Despite the common origin of these two terms, ecology and economy have scarcely interacted until recently. This interaction has centered on four major questions. (1) What types of economic growth are good and what types are harmful? (2) What types of economic system are compatible with preserving the environment and the earth’s finite resources? (3) How can the economy be used to protect and improve environmental quality? (4) Will economic costs of environmental protection and improvement be too high relative to the benefits of continuing the present high rate of per capita resource use?
The inhabitants of the island of Cebu occupy an area of 540,000 hectares of rugged mountains and managed to survive within the pristine coastal areas.
To most economists, chambers of commerce and industrialists, economic growth is equated with progress. Only a vigorously growing economy, coupled with maximum production and maximum consumption, is considered healthy and sound.
More economic growth is supposed to increase human well-being, help provide enough jobs, control inflation, help cure poverty and provide enough funds to clean up the environment.
Since 1970, the goal of ever-increasing economic growth has come under attack by a growing number of environmentalists, economists and even some industrialists. These critics argue that continued economic growth is neither possible nor desirable because of finite resources and the limited ability of the environment to absorb heat and wastes.
They believe that the harmful consequences of economic growth often outweigh the benefits. The issue is more complicated than growth-at-no-cost versus no growth.
A number of economists and environmentalists have moved beyond this counterproductive debate. These groups generally agree that some forms of economic growth are neither desirable, necessary, nor inevitable.
In the words of economist Herman E. Daly, “what we need is growth in things that really count rather than in things that are merely countable.”
Unfortunately, we still know relatively little about which types of growth have good effects and which have bad, or about how to measure these effects.
The major need is to use economic rewards and penalties to redirect growth and eliminate waste. Some things need to grow and some need to decline, because Cebu’s resources and the environment’s ability to absorb pollution are finite.
There are those who argue that eliminating waste would allow continued economic growth without running into limits of growth.
If we place monetary value on the bad effects, the price of any form of economic growth can be made to reflect the costs, and undesirable growth will be discouraged.
It appears that existing economic systems — including capitalism, socialism and communism —have the same need to increase economic growth continually by increasing the rate of flow of matter and energy resources through national economies.
The resulting rise in pollution is a problem in all industrialized countries. Economists are finding that modern economic models cannot be used to predict and control the economy as well as they had hoped. This strongly suggests that the problem is economic theory itself.
It has been suggested that instead of tampering with dangerously out-of-date economic models, economists should develop more comprehensive and realistic body of economic theories based on preserving the health of basic biological systems (fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands), which form the foundation of the global economic system.
Incidentally, would tourism be the type of growth Cebu needs?
