Strict Environmental Standards Research Articles

The Environmental Challenge: The Effect of Natural Gas Demand on Europe

Although aerial pollution from combustion of natural gas is small compared to that for other fossil fuels, the threat to global warming is less, and its energy conversion efficiency is higher, EEC authorities, in 1988, regulated in a manner that discriminated against it in preference to coal. However, growing concern for the environment will change these circumstances. Natural gas is increasingly a favoured fuel. The EEC's discussion paper Energy in Europe analyses three scenarios for the energy market over the next 20 years taking into account the impacts of supply/demand, technology, environmental care, regulations and policies. That advocating strong economic growth with strict environmental standards, improved efficiency and better consumer behaviour, is favoured. The growth in gas demand will continue with a sharp increase by the year 2000. It should grow by about 45% by 2010. The price will be higher as more expensive sources are used.

Checking the Pulse of PitCon '88

At PitCon '88-otherwise known as the Pittsburgh Conference and Exposition on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy-exhibited instruments capitalized on improvements in existing technology rather than novel concepts or design. This year's models feature increasing automation, particularly for aspects of sample presentation. The 1988 generation of so-called hyphenated systems emphasize a combination of techniques within the same work station-gas chromatography to detect and separate organic contaminants combined with mass spectrometry to identify them, for example. And in keeping with strict environmental standards, many companies are stressing the ability of their latest instruments to detect levels of environmental pollutants in the parts per billion, rather than parts per million, range. PitCon '88 lured more than 25,000 participants to New Orleans for the week of 22 to 26 February. Approximately 830 companies displayed their wares at 2400 booths, and it took two separate facilities to house them. Specialized symposia on advances in spectroscopic, chromatographic, and electrochemical techniques increased in number as did the number of individual talks and posters. And new this year were three general interest symposia-identifying antiques by spectrochemical techniques, cholesterol, and drug testing in the workplace.

Towards an: Environmental/Labor Coalition

Workers and environmentalists are beginning to perceive that, regardless of their many short-term conflicts, they will need each other in the long run. Labor has traditionally opposed strict environmental standards as a threat to jobs, but evidence is now available that federally mandated pollution control programs will raise overall employment through 1986. Studies also indicate that the inflationary impact of these controls is minimal. Most modern industry is capital-, energy-, and technology-intensive at the expense of human labor. The labor market has been shifting to meet the increased demand for goods and services, making the old formulas for determining how much capital and energy are needed to produce jobs obsolete. The threat of job losses is often blamed on the environmentalists when the real cuprit is corporation failing to protect the health and safety of its workers and the public. Environmentalists need to recognize the inefficiencies of American production methods and address the basic question of who should control America's resources and wealth. A coalition of workers and environmentalists could press for issues of mutual self-interest. (DCK)

Welfare economics and environmental problems

This paper sets out to place the subject matter of environmental management in a context wider than that traditionally used by economists. This traditional context is defined by the use of “neoclassical” welfare economics which, in its modern form, has been revived in the form of cost‐benefit analysis. The authors establish that this framework neglects the overall functions of the ecosystem as a life‐support system and argue that the partial nature of welfare economics assessments of environmental programmes will cause a neglect of the “ ecodimension” effects. They propose a model in which ecological impacts are integrated into the standard economic model, securing results which differ considerably from those of the latter approach. In particular, they show that consideration of ecological effects dictates much stricter environmental standards than would otherwise be the case.