Question

State any four pressing environmental concerns of India. Correction for environmental damages involves opportunity costs. Explain.

Answer 1

Air pollution, water contamination, soil erosion, deforestation and wild life extinction are some of the most pressing environmental concerns for India. But the priority issues include global warming, land degradation, ozone depletion and management of fresh water.

Opportunity cost is the cost that is foregone when we make a choice or a decision. If a piece of land is to be used for wheat production then the production of say, rice, is to be sacrificed. The loss of rice production is the opportunity cost of producing wheat. In the similar way, the opportunity cost of correction for environmental damages refers to the huge amount of expenditure incurred on searching for new efficient alternatives. The heavy intensive and extensive extraction of both renewable and non-renewable resources demands expenditure for exploring new alternative resources in order to avoid an environmental crisis. The discovery of such resources requires heavy investment by the government. Also, implementation and maintenance of these alternative resources involve very high cost. The best example is the advent of CNG in order to reduce the rising problem of pollution in Delhi. The government has incurred heavy investment to popularise CNG and to make the consumers aware regarding its uses. Therefore, the correction for environmental damages involves opportunity cost that is very high.