In 1972, the United Nations General Assembly convened the first ...

[ss2343]

In 1972, the United Nations General Assembly convened the first UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. During the ensuing years, other conferences were held. (a) What factors mitigate against international cooperation to solve global ecological problems? (b) What are the prospects for achieving sustainable development through a managed global commons arrangement?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

NeoMalthusians and cornucopians are the labels given to different schools of thought about the impact of population growth on economic development and environmental quality. Write an essay in which you contrast the positions taken by these two schools on the demographic future of the human species. Based on the available evidence on current population and resource trends, which school of thought do you find more convincing? Why?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[Beatricemm]

Answer to Question 1

Theorists adhering to realism and free-market mercantilism resolutely defend freedom
of economic choice without regulation as the best path to realizing the greatest good
for the greatest number. Theorists from these traditions believe that pursuing selfinterest and personal profit will benefit all in the long run, producing more income and
technological innovation than would otherwise occur under supervisory regulation of
corporations, entrepreneurs, and investors. They also feel that minimal interference in
the pursuit of personal gain is helpful to the preservation of the Earth's environment.
According to their reasoning, the pursuit of private gain with little restraint is a virtue,
not a vice.

Answer to Question 2

Global environmental issues engage the competing perspectives of optimistic
cornucopians and pessimistic neo-Malthusians. Cornucopians adhere to the belief
that if free markets and free trade prevail, ecological imbalances that threaten
humanity will eventually be corrected. For them, prices are the key adjustment
mechanism that ultimately produces the greatest good for the greatest number of
people. Neo-Malthusians, on the other hand, have a lot in common with economic
mercantilism, which argues that free markets fail to prevent excessive resource
exploitation and that, accordingly, intervention by governing institutions is necessary.
This latter perspective rejects the belief that the free market will always maximize
social welfare.