10 - ECOLOGY AND THE FREE-RIDER

Summary

THE ECOLOGICAL PROBLEM

It is now clear that various changes in the global environment, caused by human agency, will seriously and adversely affect the conditions in which we live. There are a variety of different but related problems involved. The consequences of industrial production and consumption have created a large number of secondary products and resulted in pollution. Some of this is temporary, but some of it may have permanent or at least very long-run effects on the global environment. A prominent example is the possibility of global warming caused by the build-up of carbon dioxide and other gasses, with its accompanying threats of climatic changes and rising ocean levels. Other problems are the extinction of various forms of living matter due to over-fishing or over-hunting or simply the destruction of the animal's habitat through the expansion of production and the world's human population, which are still increasing rapidly. The extinction of various species of whales, and the threatened extinction of more, are examples in this category. Population is growing rapidly, and somewhere there is a limit to what is supportable on the globe. There is little doubt, even amongst optimists, that there are significant harmful consequences of mass wealth production which are not directly taken into account in economic decisions. There are also advantageous side-effects of mass production, though there seems to be consensus that the negative effects predominate.