Title: Environmental and Ecological economics
Abstract:
Environmental economics is a concentration within the traditional field of economics that focuses on modern environmental issues. Economics is about finding the right balance between how many products can be sold and how much products and services should cost (supply and demand); environmental economics is about trying to balance the needs people have for products and services with the necessity of protecting natural resources and the environment. Many environmental economists today are taking a more ecological and holistic approach to traditional economic theories, creating two different fields in this subset of economics: environmental economics and ecological economics.Environmental issues have broad social, cultural, and political implications beyond those found in standard economic theory. Environmental economists take these complex and inter-related issues into account when making economic policy with concern for more than basic supply, demand, and profit-maximisation. Environmental and ecological economists consider the exhaustibility of natural resources, the environmental and health benefits of alternative fuels, and the long-term costs of remediation in economic equations. They hope to make decisions that are sustainable, ecologically and socially sound.One distinction that may be made between environmental and ecological economics is the notion of "value": environmental economists tend to focus on human preferences (demand-side), while ecological economists tend to focus on the science and environmental consequences of economic decisions (supply-side). Whilst environmental economists are concerned with the efficient allocation of natural resources, ecological economists figure out the cost-benefit of preserving or protecting natural resources
