In dealing with environmental questions, economists emphasize efficiency, social welfare, and the need for cost accountability. A basic principle for efficiency is that all costs be borne by the entity who generates them in production or consumption....

Environmental economics has its origins in the writings of Gray (the early 1900s), Pigou (1920s) and Hotelling (1930s), but did not develop as a coherent discipline until the 1970s, the era of the first environmental revolution. There are three central...

Environmentally responsible investing is one component of a larger phenomenon known as socially responsible investing. The idea is that investors should use their money to support industries whose operations accord with the investors' personal...

A system of national or business accounting where such environmental assets as air, water, and land are not considered to be free and abundant resources but instead are considered to be scarce economic assets. Any environmental damage caused by the...

Environmental economics is a subfield of economics concerned with environmental issues (other usages of the term are not uncommon). Quoting from the National Bureau of Economic Research Environmental Economics...

An NBER Conference on Environmental Economics was held in Newport, Rhode Island, on May 17 and 18. NBER Research Associate Gilbert Metcalf of Tufts University organized this program: Hilary Sigman, NBER and Rutgers University, "Trade and Pollution in Shared Resources: A Study...

While listening to the arguments presented to the Montgomery County Council before it voted recently to approve construction of a $400 million trash incinerator on a wooded tract in Dickerson, I found County Executive Neal Potter's reasoning most compelling. He urged the council...

A U.N. climate change conference in Indonesia may produce a roadmap for countries to reduce their global-warming emissions after the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012, a scientist said Monday.World leaders will start negotiations next month on the resort island of Bali for a replacement to...

The U.N.'s top climate change official urged the new secretary-general on Tuesday to fill a global leadership vacuum and mobilize world leaders and the private sector to adopt a new policy to tackle global warming in the coming decades."I think the secretary-general of the United...