Environmental Management and Sustainable Development

In Class Test

NOTE: This does not count towards your final mark for the course

Time available:

30 minutes initially, then those that wish to stay to the end of the lecture and carry on
can do so after others have been given the opportunity to leave.

Answer all questions in the spaces provided (use the reverse of each page if
necessary)

5 marks available for each question

Ideal answers will be made available online and discussed in the next lecture.
1. Describe the key features of the Environmental Kuznet’s Curve (2 marks)?
Name one example where it has been observed to reflect reality (1 mark) and
two reasons it might be considered to be limited (2 marks).

 Shows the relationship between per capita income/economic growth

and pollution/environmental quality (1 mark).

 Inverted “U” shaped curve hypothesising that as per capita income

grows, so does pollution, but it eventually reaches a turning point where
at higher income levels pollution decreases/environmental quality
increases (1 mark).

 Using a diagram to illustrate the answer added to the clarity of the

answer and increased the chances of gaining the mark.

 The most obvious example where the EKC has been observed to hold
is Sulphur Dioxide Emissions from coal fired power stations – marks
would also be given for other examples from the published academic
literature (1 mark)

 A range of limitations could have been cited, e.g. richer countries tend
to export manufacturing and hence their pollution making the EKC
limited on a global scale; tends to work for local pollution but not for
global environmental pollution/environmental problems such as climate
change and biodiversity; empirical research on the EKC is inconclusive
overall (1 mark for any of these examples)
2. Describe what we mean by “trade-offs” and what we mean by
“complementarities” in relation to sustainable development (3 marks). Provide
one example of a trade-off and one example of a complementarity between
different aspects of sustainable development (2 marks).

 Trade-offs are where an increase in one aspect of sustainability (e.g.

economic growth) results in a decrease in another aspect (e.g.
environmental quality) (1 mark)

 Complementarities are where an increase in one aspect of

sustainability results in a corresponding increase in another aspect of
sustainability (1 mark)

 An additional mark was available to students who used an accurate

diagram to illustrate their answer reflecting the diagrams displayed in
the lectures (1 mark)

 A range of examples could be used here drawing from across the

course, perhaps drawing on the lecture on forestry and woodland e.g.
complementarities between economic benefits from tourism activities in
woodlands and social benefits in terms of increased health from
woodland based recreation, or trade-offs between environment
(biodiversity) and economy (timber production) in planting native
broadleaved trees vs. non-native (but fast, straight growing) conifers.
Or students could have drawn on some of the trade-offs between the
different economic functions of the environment covered in the lecture
(e.g. wind farms for resource supply traded off against aesthetic
services as some people find them ugly). (1 mark for each example up
to a maximum of 2 marks)
3. Briefly summarise what Hardin meant by “the tragedy of the commons” (3
marks). Describe how this idea might relate to encouraging people to reduce
carbon emissions by cycling to work instead of driving (2 marks)?

 Hardin was referring to a situation where individuals reap the full (private)
benefit of depleting the environment (1 mark) whereas the cost of that impact
is shared across society (1 mark) thus leading to a situation where
communally owned (or more correctly, open access) resources will always be
degraded (1 mark).

 Hardin’s idea can be applied to the issue of encouraging people to cycle to

work by considering the atmosphere as a kind of commons (although strictly
speaking it’s an open access resource which is what Hardin confused a
common property resource with). If someone choses to drive they get the full
benefit of not cycling (e.g. not getting wet in the rain, not having to risk their
lives, not breathing in so much exhaust fumes). However, the cost they
impose by emitting pollutants and degrading the atmosphere is shared across
the whole of society. So there’s a constant, rational incentive to keep driving to
the point where the atmosphere is degraded.
4. Name the four economic functions of the environment (2 marks). Briefly
describe the similarities between Boulding’s idea of “Spaceship Earth” and the
way that new economic disciplines (like environmental and ecological
economics) try to theorise the relationship between the environment and the
economy (3 marks).

 The four functions are resource supply, waste assimilation, aesthetic services
and life support functions (0.5 marks for each of these)

 Boulding theorised planet Earth as a spaceship with the economy forming an

open sub-system of the closed global ecosystem (1 mark). This is similar to
the environmental economic approach which theorises the economy as a sub-
system of the global ecosystem (1 mark) which relies on the economic
functions of the environment (1 mark).

 Some leeway is allowed in this answer for students to describe these general
principles in different language as long as the core concepts are addressed.