Q.Explain how the opportunity costs of negative environmental impact are high.
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Negative environmental impacts force society to spend heavily on health, clean-up and resource substitution. These are resources sacrificed from development and welfare, so the opportunity cost of environmental damage is very high.
Meaning of opportunity cost here
The opportunity cost of an action is the value of the next-best alternative that has to be given up. When the environment is harmed, correcting the damage and coping with its effects absorbs resources that could have been put to other productive uses. The larger and more valuable those foregone uses, the higher the opportunity cost.
Why the opportunity cost of environmental damage is high
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Health costs. Rising air and water pollution has increased the incidence of respiratory and water-borne diseases. Society must spend large amounts on health care to protect people from polluted air and water — expenditure that would not have been necessary otherwise.
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Cost of depleted resources. Intensive and extensive extraction of both renewable and non-renewable resources has exhausted some vital resources. We are now forced to spend huge amounts on technology and research to explore new resources and to find substitutes for the ones being depleted.
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Cost of clean-up and correction. Enormous funds must be committed to reversing environmental degradation — restoring forests, cleaning rivers, and reducing pollution. …
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