Economics Assignment: Discussion Questions Submission

Question

Task

Write a report on economics assignment answering the following questions:

Question One:
While it is readily detectable that human activity is affecting the global carbon cycle and contributing to climate change, yet many of the basic understanding of economy-environmental relationships, for instance, stock-flow relationships of capital accumulation and waste creation, and rise of use of extra somatic energy are frequently misunderstood by the members of the general public.

With this background established,

• What do you know about the debate between Climate Change sceptics and advocates in the light of recent debates
• Suggest the reasons for why the members of the general public find it so hard to understand the significance of climate change. You can read the article by Sterman (2011): ‘Communicating the climate change’
• In your overview, describe how and why ‘atmospheric carbon stock’ can help scientists and general public to understand the message more effectively.

Question Two:

Read the review article on a recent publication of Bill Pascoe's Dark Emu and then discuss the debate around whether Aboriginal Australians had achieved sustainable agricultural practices occasioned by Bill Pascoe.

Question Three:

Many economists argue that economic accounting or real Gross Domestic measure (GDP) deals poorly with environmental and economic welfare. For instance, natural disasters e.g. Australia’s deadliest 2019-2020 Bushfire and Droughts, Japan’s March 2011 earthquake and tsunami or human induced disasters e.g. Gulf of Mexico 2010 oil spill and the very recent Mauritius oil spill from Japanese bulk carrier, often have mixed impact on GDP.

• Using one of the examples mentioned above, discuss the likely short-term and long-term impact on GDP and justify the claim why many economists argue that real GDP deals poorly with matters for instance environmental and economic welfare.
• Now, undertake an internet search to identify the motivation behind the construction of National Resource Balance Sheets (NRBS) and suggest if there are any alternative measures available to consider the environmental impacts on GDP.

Answer

Introduction
The present economics assignment sheds light on the concept of environmental economics which is considered as a study of understanding the relationship between the environment and economics on a local or global scale. As stated by Geiger, Swim and Fraser (2017), the time delays the feedback process and different communication models are used to increase knowledge management. This study aims to describe the concept of global warming and climate change, the history of aboriginal people, and the impact of natural disasters like the Australian Bushfire of the economy.

Q1.

• Global warming and climate change are likely to pass by 99% and cause temperature change. As influenced by Watts (2019), the debate says about the current climate change skeptics and knowledge to provide to the children for having the awareness related to climate change and global warming. Another debate shows the true difference between the localized and regional changes related to climate and provides global anthropogenic greenhouse emission effects. Human responsibility gets changed concerning climate change as referred to in the past. Industrial emission is the key reason for causing unusual warming in the environment and leads to a temperature rise over two decades.
• Members of the general public find it so hard for understanding climate change significance due to several reasons. As per the readings of Sterman, (2011) undertaken in the economics assignment, Risk assessment and knowledge synthesis under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC makes a positive impact. The basic facts related to climate change are very poor among the general public due to the lack of understanding related to the mental models. The complex system of climate change is not understandable among the general public due to a lack of attendance and a lack of interactive simulations under the experiential learning environments. The time delays feedback process and different communication models are used to increase knowledge management related to climate change but due to the lack of attentiveness and neglecting the issues of climate change lead to non-understanding of such severe issues.
• The atmospheric carbon stock is defined as the CO2 concentration, which is developed by fossil-fuel burning and is mainly considered as the human-induced emission. As stated by Reiny (2016), a significant rise in the greening of vegetated lands in the last 35 years, thanks to an increased level of atmospheric carbon stock. According to NASA, in these recent years, greening through increase inn leaves in the pants has been seen. The increased amount of CO2 in atmosphere helping plants in their photosynthesis process which leads to better growth of the plants. Through this phenomenon, scientists can understand how atmospheric carbon stock can be utilized in a positive way which as a result will help general people by increasing vegetation.

Q2.
Over the years, the basic concept of the history of Aboriginal people is still not clear to most Australian people. There is a concept about the Aboriginal people being the “hunter-gatherers” but the concept is not entirely true. According to a book review published by The Socialist (2019), Bruce Pascoe in his book ‘Dark Emu, Black Seeds: Aboriginal or Accident?’ states that Aboriginal people were rather colonized people who lived based on agriculture. He stated that Aboriginal people have their own permanent houses and they build those houses as a colony to live in different areas. However, there is a fallacy as it has been found that there are countless numbers of houses that were empty as the people living within it deserted those houses. As per Pryor (2014), history states that, though Aboriginal people lived as a colony, they often changed their living places and built new houses wherever they arrived in each journey. This fact argues with Pascoe's concept of a completely agriculture-based society about the Aboriginal people. University of Colorado (2017) published a report which says a study led by Monash University of Victoria revealed that the main reason behind the extinction of Australian megafauna was due to indigenous people. These people traveled from place to place and hunt animals for their food and other purposes. A combination of overhunting and huge climate change hugely impacted the local fauna to a great extent which led to the extinction of huge and astonishing animals in Australia. After the European attack, Europeans cast out the Aboriginal people from their places to acquire the places for themselves. This greatly impacted the natural livelihood of the Aboriginal people and because of that reason along with their carried diseases, a huge number of Aboriginal people died. However, Pascoe was able to successfully improve the way Aboriginal people were treated in Australia by flushing out their original history to the general people. In overall, it can be said that, though Aboriginal people were dependent on agriculture to a certain extent, it cannot be said that they were are to achieve sustainable agricultural practices.

Q3.

• Natural disasters like the Australian Bushfire have both directly and indirectly impacted on the country’s GDP. According to Oliver (2020), natural disasters with this amount of magnitude impacts on multiple factors like people, corporate sector, infrastructure, and economy in Australia. The affected people due to this incident were 2-3% of the population all over the country and because of this reason, their daily expenditure got affected. Already, before the incident, the country was suffering from economic weakness and as the bushfire resulted in smoke haze in multiple cities, it significantly impacted consumer spending. According to a survey, due to this smoke, people were frightened and suffered from depression. This led to a situation where general people reduced their daily time spend outside of their house and spending money in different shops and grocery stores. The inbound tourism was also affected due to the situation led by the bushfire. All these factors noted in the part of economics assignment significantly impacted on the country’s GDP. In short term, it will not impact on the GDP to a great extent, but for long term impacts, these kinds of phenomenon can create huge impact on GDP.
• The key motivation for the construction of National Resource Balance Sheets (NRBS) is for promoting the ecological civilization construction through measurement. According to Yan, Feng, and Yang (2017), categorized land resources, forest resources, and water resources are explained through the NRBS with its accounting indices. Based upon the result of the measurement of these accounting indices further provides the natural resource liabilities as compared to the GDP rate and natural resources assets in every fiscal year. Three principles of NRBS are evolving around the physical terms, monetary terms (Stock terms and flow terms), and finally the integration terms. As per the three principles measurements are usually done to make an integration between the environmental and economic aspects. Green development is the motto of NRBS for promoting sustainability and reducing climate change. ENV-Linkages model can be used as an alternative to the NRBS as it provides databases of national economies ( GTAP) to provide the feasibility towards the economic growth in a country.

Conclusion
From the above study prepared in the economics assignment, it has been evidenced that climate change and global warming leads to a certain level of economic loss for prospects. Several factors whether it is the country's history or present-day situation, proper understanding helps to understand how all these factors impact the economy. Defining climate change among children and even other general publics was highly useful for securing the carbon stock process.

Reference list
Geiger, N., Swim, J. K., & Fraser, J. (2017). Creating a climate for change: Interventions, efficacy and public discussion about climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 51, 104-116. economics assignment Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nathaniel_Geiger/publication/315442083_
Creating_a_climate_for_change_Interventions_efficacy_and_public_discussion_about_
climate_change/links/59de692b0f7e9bcfab240153/Creating-a-climate-for-change-Interventions-efficacy-and-public-discussion-about-climate-change.pdf

Oliver, S. (2020). The impact of the Australian bushfires on investors worldwide. Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: https://www.ampcapital.com/asia/en/capital-edition/edition-5/the-impact-of-the-australian-bushfires-on-investors-worldwide

Pryor, C, (2014). Rethinking Indigenous Australia's agricultural past. Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/bushtelegraph/rethinking-indigenous-australias-agricultural-past/5452454

Reiny, S. (2016). CO2 is making Earth greener—for now. Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/

Sterman, J. D. (2011). Communicating climate change risks in a skeptical world. Climatic Change, 108(4), 811. Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226723205_Communicating_Climate_
Change_Risks_in_a_Skeptical_World

The Socialist. (2019). Book Review: Dark Emu. Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: https://thesocialist.org.au/review-dark-emu/

University of Colorado. (2017). Humans, not climate change, wiped out Australian megafauna. Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-humans-climate-australian-megafauna.html

Watts. J., (2019). 'No doubt left' about scientific consensus on global warming, say experts. Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiz4I_gpvXrA
hWyL6YKHaUHA_QQFjAAegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fscience%2F2019%2Fjul
%2F24%2Fscientific-consensus-on-humans-causing-global-warming-passes-99&usg=AOvVaw2It1B8FmIc9P7OsS_wJDN7

Yan, H. M., Feng, Z. M., & Yang, Y. Z. (2017). First report of the national natural resources balance sheet for Huzhou City and Anji County. Economics assignment Resources Science, 39(9), 1634-1645. Retrieved on 19 September, 2020 from: http://www.resci.cn/EN/abstract/abstract41314.shtml