The RFF Reader in Environmental and Resource Policy

Front Cover
Resources for the Future, 2006 - Law - 314 pages
Many articles in the Reader were originally published in RFF's quarterly magazine, Resources. Wally Oates has supplemented that with material drawn from other RFF works, including issue briefs and special reports. The readings provide concise, insightful background and perspectives on a broad range of environmental issues including benefit-cost analysis, environmental regulation, hazardous and toxic waste, environmental equity, and the environmental challenges in developing nations and transitional economies. Natural-resource topics include resource management, biodiversity, and sustainable agriculture. The articles address many of today's most difficult public policy questions, such as environmental policy and economic growth, and 'When is a Life Too Costly to Save?' New to the second edition is an expanded set of readings on global climate change and sustainability, plus cutting-edge policy applications on topics like the environment and public health and the growing problem of antibiotic and pesticide resistance. For general readers, the RFF Reader has been an accessible, nontechnical, authoritative introduction to key issues in environmental and natural resources policy. It has been especially effective in demonstrating the contribution that economics and other social science research can make toward improving public debate and decisionmaking. Organized to follow the contents of popular textbooks in environmental economics and politics, it has also found wide use in beginning environmental policy courses.
 

Contents

The Yucca Mountain Standard
7
Valuation of the Environment
13
Economics and Ethics
28
Discountings Problematic Allure
35
Risk Ethics and Nuclear Energy
43
Environmental Regulation
49
Five Examples of the Use of Markets
56
Economics Incentives Versus Command and Control
66
Resource Management and Conservation
129
The Obstacles and the Impetus
136
Dirty Cheap Energy
181
Global Climate Change
199
How Much Climate Change is Too Much?
213
The Necessary Step
235
Thinking About Sustainable Development
245
An Almost Practical Step Toward Sustainability
253

The Promise
72
Is Gasoline Undertaxed in the United States?
83
One Can Lead to
93
Is It Desirable? Is It Feasible?
101
Environmental Federalism
107
A Case for Decentralized
115
Experimental Federalism
123
Environmental Policy in Developing
263
Demonstrating Emissions Trading in Taiyuan China
270
Coping with
279
New Horizons in Environmental Management
287
Can We Draw
293
An Historical Perspective
299
Copyright

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