Environmental and natural resources are at the forefront of sustainability and green movements in industry from energy to marketing to economics. This new again field is getting a closer look than before in attempts to determine how sustainable green and sustainable resources actually are. Will the consumers need for more, lead to a scarcity of natural resources that has not yet been realized? Coal and oil were once thought to be limitless, which has now been proven not to be true. Will the same happen to other natural resources as the market increases for these items? What are the economic effects of this movement and use of these resources? What is the effect of legislation and activism on the economy of these resources?
This text covers the concepts, people, the legislation and more with a focus on the economics of it all. Each entry is a detailed overview on the topic with cross-references, further reading and reference list. While some contributors such as the US Environmental Protection Agency occur multiple times, there is diversity among the contributors on the whole who include government agencies, universities and personal authors on an international level.
Entries are written at a level accessible to the layman with enough detail to keep an economist’s attention. For example, the entry on green jobs discusses the lack of definition of a “green job” in relation to the size of the green economy and the economic impact of this type of position – even when those that do define it do not have comparable definitions. Other entries include the Benefit–Cost Analysis (of a zero pollution objective), Peak Oil, Earth Day (history of) and Invasive Species (and their impact on the natural resources of a region). The breadth of coverage gives more attention to the issues at hand than to possible solutions to problems. While some topics may contain theory, the overall focus is grounded in current and historical contexts.
