Discuss the major changes that have taken place in the environment due to the large scale use and over exploration of the natural resources? 15mark
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A major challenge in environmental policymaking is determining whether and how fast our society should adopt sustainable management methods. These decisions may have long-lasting effects on the environment, and therefore, they depend critically on the discount factor, which determines the relative values given to future environmental goods compared to present ones. The discount factor has been a major focus of debate in recent decades, and nevertheless, the potential effect of the environment and its management on the discount factor has been largely ignored. Here we show that to maximize social welfare, policymakers need to consider discount factors that depend on changes in natural resource harvest at the global scale. Particularly, the more our society over-harvests today, the more policymakers should discount the near future, but the less they should discount the far future. This results in a novel discount formula that implies significantly higher values for future environmental goods.
1.Global environmental hazards to human health include climate change.
2.Stratospheric ozone depletion.
3.Change in eco system due to loss of biodiversity.
3.Changes in hydrological system.
4. Changes in supplies of fresh water, land degradation, urbanization, and stresses on food producing system.