Chap23· 23.1Economic Systems and the Biosphere· 23.1aEconomic

Chap23
· 23.1Economic Systems and the Biosphere
· 23.1aEconomic Systems Depend on Natural Capital
· 23.1bGovernment Intervention Helps Correct Market Failures
· 23.1cModels of Economies
· 23.2Economic Value of Natural Capital and Pollution Control
· 23.2aValuing Natural Capital
· 23.2bEstimating the Future Value of a Resource
· 23.2cOptimum Levels of Pollution Control and Resource Use
· 23.2dCost–Benefit Analysis
· 23.3Using Economics to Deal With Environmental Problems
· 23.3aFull-Cost Pricing
· 23.3bEnvironmentally Beneficial Subsidies
· 23.3cEnvironmental Indicators
· 23.3dTaxing Pollution and Wastes Instead of Wages and
Profits
· 23.3eUsing Cap-and-Trade to Reduce Pollution and Resource
Waste
· 23.3fLabeling Environmentally Beneficial Goods and Ser vices
· 23.3gEnvironmental Laws and Regulations
· 23.3hSelling Services Instead of Products
· 23.4Poverty and Environmental Problems
· 23.4aReducing Poverty
· 23.4bMillennium Development Goals and Sustainable
Development Goals
· 23.5Environmentally Sustainable Economies
· 23.5aLow-Throughput Economies
· 23.5bShifting to More Sustainable Economies
· 23.5cUsing Lessons from Nature to Make an Economic
Transition
· Tying It All TogetherGermany’s Transition to Renewable
Energy and Sustainability
· Chapter Review
· Critical Thinking

· Doing Environmental Science
· Data Analysis
· Germany, one of the world’s most industrialized nations, is
undergoing a renewable energy revolution (Chapter 16, Case
Study). The country aims to get 65% of its electricity from
renewable energy resources by 2030 and 80% by 2050. It plans
to phase out nuclear power as a source of its electricity by 2022
and ultimately to cease relying on coal to produce electricity.
· In 2018, Germany generated about 40% of its electricity using
wind farms on land (see chapter-opening photo) and at sea
(Figure 23.1, left), solar energy (Figure 23.1, right), and other
renewable sources. This surpassed the amount of electricity
generated from coal and nuclear energy in Germany. On days
when conditions were ideal, Germany produced as much as 80%
of its electricity from renewable energy. Since 2000, this shift
to renewable energy has created a multibillion-dollar German
industry that includes renewable energy production and sales of
renewable energy technology around the world.
· Figure 23.1
· This wind farm (left) is located off Germany’s coast, and this
rural village (right) in Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate is
typical for many German towns in having several rooftop solar
panels.
·
·
· Luftbild Bertram/AGE Fotostock; iStock.com/Richard
Schmidt-Zuper
· This transition was spurred by government legislation aimed at
homeowners, businesses, and communities that produce
electricity from solar cells, wind, and other renewable energy
systems. The law allows them to sell the electricity they
produce to Germany’s major power companies at a fixed rate
that guarantees their investments will at least break even. With
this feed-in tariff system, the government ensures that
renewable energy producers will not lose money. In fact, they
often make a profit.

· The German government has also promoted the building of
wind farms on land and offshore along the North Sea and Baltic
Sea coasts (Figure 23.1, left). It plans to have 10,000 offshore
wind turbines operating by 2030. There are plans to lay more
than 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) of high-voltage electrical
cables throughout parts of the country and under the North Sea
as part of a new state-of-the-art electrical grid. Such a grid
would be far more efficient than conventional grids, and would
help to make Germany’s dependence on electricity from solar
and wind energy more dependable.
· Since 1990, solar energy production has risen steadily in
Germany, much of it through rooftop solar collectors (Figure
23.1, right). Even when the economy was sagging, solar and
wind energy production continued to grow in
Germany.Germany’s shift to renewable energy to produce
electricity has faced some challenges that we discuss in this
chapter. Even critics of the feed-in tariff agree that it has done
its job in helping to establish a vibrant renewable energy
industry in Germany. Germany’s example shows that economic
improvements in renewable energy and improvements in
environmental quality can go hand in hand—an example of the
win-win principle of sustainability. Some economists argue that
shifting to cleaner renewable energy resources, cleaner
industrial production, and more sustainable agriculture would
help create more environmentally sustainable economies.
23.1aEconomic Systems Depend on Natural Capital
Economics is the social science that deals with the production,
distribution, and consumption of goods and services to satisfy
people’s needs and wants. In a market-based economic system,
buyers and sellers interact to make economic decisions about
how goods and services are produced, distributed, and
consumed. In a truly free-market economic system, all economic
decisions are governed solely by the competitive interactions of
supply and demand (Figure 23.2). Supply is the amount of a
good or service that producers offer for sale at a given
price. Demand is the amount of a good or service that people

are willing and able to buy at a given price. If the demand for a
good or service is greater than the supply, the price rises. If the
supply is greater than demand, the price falls.
Figure 23.2
Supply and demand curves for a saleable product in a free
market economic system. If all factors except supply, demand,
and price are held fixed, market equilibrium occurs at the point
where the supply and demand curves intersect.
Data Analysis:
1. How would an increase in the available supply of oil shift the
market equilibrium point on this diagram?
Changes in supply and demand can shift one or both curves
back and forth, and thus change the equilibrium point. For
example, when supply is increased (shifting the blue curve to
the right) and demand remains the same, the market price will
go down. Similarly, when demand is increased (shifting the red
curve to the right) and supply remains the same, the market
price will rise.
A truly free-market economy rarely exists in today’s capitalist
market systems because factors other than supply and demand
influence prices and sales. The primary goal of any business is
to make as large a profit as possible for its owners or
stockholders. To do so, most businesses try to take business
away from their competitors and to exert as much control as
possible over the prices of the goods and services they provide.
For example, many companies push for government support
such as subsidies, or payments intended to help a business grow
and thrive, along with tax breaks, trade barriers, and regulations
that will give their products an advantage in the market over
their competitors’ products. When governments give larger
subsidies to some companies or industries than they give to
others within the same market, it can create an uneven economic
playing field.
In addition, some companies withhold information from
consumers about the costs and dangers that their products may

pose to human health or to the environment, unless the
government requires them to provide such information. Thus,
buyers often do not get complete information about the harmful
environmental impacts of the goods and services they buy.
Some economists say that providing such information for
consumers should be one of the requirements of a truly free-
market economy.
Most economic systems use three types of capital, or resources,
to produce goods and services (Figure 23.3). Natural
capital (see Figure 1.3) includes resources and ecosystem
services produced by the earth’s natural processes, which
support all life and all economies. Human capital includes the
physical and mental talents of the people who provide labor,
organizational and management skills, and
innovation. Manufactured capital, also called built capital,
includes tools, materials, machinery, factories, roads, and other
infrastructure that people create using natural resources.
Figure 23.3
Three types of resources are used to produce goods and
services.
Center: Elena Elisseeva/ Shutterstock.com. Right center:
Michael Shake/ Shutterstock.com. Right: iStock.com/Yuri·
23.1bGovernment Intervention Helps Correct Market Failures
· Markets usually work well in guiding the efficient production
and distribution of private goods. However, experience shows
that they cannot be relied on to provide adequate levels
of public services, such as national security, police and
firefighters, and environmental protection. Economists
generally refer to such deficiencies as market failures. An
important example of a market failure is the inability of markets
to prevent the degradation of open-access resources, such as
clean air, the open ocean, and the earth’s overall life-support
system. Such vital resources are not bought and sold in the
marketplace, because they are owned by no one and available

for use by everyone at little or no charge.
· Governments intervene in market systems to provide various
public services and to help correct market failures. In the 1970s,
the U.S. government passed laws to control air pollution
(Chapter 18) and water pollution (Chapter 20). Without such
laws, air and water pollution in the United States would be
much worse than it is.
· One reason why markets often fail to provide environmental
protection is their failure to assign monetary value to the
benefits provided by the earth’s natural capital and to the
harmful effects of various human activities on the environment
and on human health. For example, the benefits of leaving an
old-growth forest undisturbed (ecosystem services such as water
purification and soil erosion reduction) usually are not weighed
against the monetary value of cutting the timber in the forest.
Thus, many old-growth forests have been cleared for their
timber, while their non-timber natural capital value, which can
be much higher than the value of their timber, is lost.
(See Science Focus 10.1, and the next section of this chapter.)
Governments can use economic tools such as subsidies and
taxes to correct this market failure.
23.1cModels of Economies
Economic growth is an increase in the capacity of a nation,
state, city, or company to provide goods and services to people.
Today, a typical industrialized country depends on a high-
throughput economy, which attempts to boost economic growth
by increasing the flow of matter and energy resources through
the economic system to produce more goods and services
(Figure 23.4). Such an economy produces valuable goods and
services. However, it also converts large quantities of high-
quality matter and energy resources into wastes, pollution, and
low-quality heat, which tend to flow into planetary sinks (air,
water, soil, and organisms).
Figure 23.4
The high-throughput economies of most of the world’s more-
developed countries rely on continually increasing the flow of

energy and matter resources to promote economic growth.
Critical Thinking:
1. What are three ways in which you regularly add to this
throughput of matter and energy through your daily activities?
Economic development focuses on creating economies that
serve to improve human well-being by meeting basic human
needs for items such as food, shelter, physical and economic
security, and good health. The world’s countries vary greatly in
their levels of economic growth and economic development.
For more than 200 years, economists have debated whether
there are limits to economic growth. Neoclassical economists,
assume that the potential for economic growth is essentially
unlimited and is necessary for providing profits for businesses
and jobs for workers. Neoclassical economists consider natural
capital important but assume that people can find substitutes for
essentially any resource or ecosystem service that we might
deplete or degrade.
Ecological economists disagree. They point out that there are no
substitutes for many vital natural resources, such as climate
control, air and water purification, pollination, topsoil renewal,
and nutrient cycling. In contrast to neoclassical economists,
they view human economic systems as subsystems of the
biosphere that depend heavily on the natural resources and
ecosystem services that make up the earth’s irreplaceable
natural capital (Figure 23.5).
Figure 23.5
Ecological economists view human economies as subsystems of
the biosphere that depend on natural resources and ecosystem
services provided by the sun and earth.
Critical Thinking:
1. Can you think of any human activities that do not depend on
natural capital? Explain.
Courtesy of JPL/NASA

According to ecological economists, economic growth becomes
unsustainable when it depletes or degrades various irreplaceable
forms of natural capital, on which all human economic systems
depend.
According to some estimates, humanity is currently using the
renewable resources of 1.5 planet Earths and could be using that
of 2 planet Earths by 2030. In other words, we are living
unsustainably by borrowing renewable resources from future
generations. This is a violation of the ethical principle of
sustainability that states we should leave the planet’s life-
support systems in as good a condition or better than what we
now experience.
2
Number of planet Earths that could be needed to sustain the
world’s projected population and total renewable resource use
in 2030
According to ecological and environmental economists,
including Herman Daly, E.F. Schumacher, Kenneth Boulding, E.
J. Mishan, Joseph H. Vogel, and John M. Gowdy today’s
economies are unsustainable because they:
· Deplete the earth’s natural capital by placing little value on its
importance in sustaining the earth’s life and economies.
· Focus on increasing economic growth without distinguishing
between sustainable and unsustainable forms of growth.
· Rely on GNP economic indicators that do not distinguish
between harmful and beneficial forms of economic growth.
· Fail to use full-cost pricing of goods and services that
consumers need to evaluate the harmful environmental and
health impacts of what they buy.
· Encourage people to consume more and more to satisfy
seeming endless wants as a way to achieve happiness.
· Fail to distribute enough of the benefits of economic growth to
meet everyone’s basic need and eliminate poverty.
· See population growth as a way to have more consumers.
· Deny that there are resource or environmental limits or assume
that technology can overcome them.

· Pass environmental and resource supply problems on to future
generations by discounting the future to justify current
economic growth.
Most ecological and environmental economists call
for environmentally sustainable economic development to help
correct some of the problems just listed. It uses political and
economic systems to encourage environmentally beneficial and
more sustainable forms of economic improvement, and to
discourage environmentally harmful and unsustainable forms of
economic growth that degrade natural capital.
Critical Thinking
1. Do you think that the economy of the country where you live
is sustainable or unsustainable? Explain.
23.2bEstimating the Future Value of a Resource
One tool used by economists, businesses, and investors to
determine the value of a resource is the discount rate—an
estimate of a resource’s future economic value compared to its
present value. It is based on the idea that today’s value of a
resource may be higher than its value in the future. Thus, its
future value should be discounted. The size of the discount rate
(usually given as a percentage) is a key factor affecting how a
resource such as a forest or fishery is used or managed.
At a zero discount rate, for example, the timber from a stand of
redwood trees (Figure 23.7) worth $1 million today will still be
worth $1 million 50 years from now. However, the U.S. Office
of Management and Budget, the World Bank, and most
businesses typically use a 10% annual discount rate to estimate
the future value of a resource. At this rate as the years go by,
the timber in a stand of redwood trees will be worth
increasingly less, and within 45 years, it will be worth less than
$10,000. Using this discount rate, it makes sense from an
economic standpoint for the owner of this resource to cut these
trees down as quickly as possible.
Figure 23.7
Economists have tried several methods for estimating the
economic value of ecosystem services, recreation opportunities,

and beauty in ecosystems such as this patch of redwood forest.
Critical Thinking:
1. What discount rate, if any, would you assign to this stand of
trees?
Sharon Eisenzopf/ Shutterstock.com
However, this economic analysis does not take into account the
immense economic value of the ecosystem services provided by
forests (see Figure 10.2, left and Figure 23.6). Such services
include the absorption of precipitation and gradual release of
water and other nutrients, natural flood control, water and air
purification, prevention of soil erosion, removal and storage of
atmospheric carbon dioxide, and protection of biodiversity
within a variety of forest habitats.
A high discount rate (5–10%) makes it difficult to sustain these
important ecosystem services. If their economic values were
included, it would make more sense now, and in the future, to
preserve large areas of redwoods for the ecosystem services
they provide and to find substitutes for redwood products.
However, while these ecosystem services are vital for the earth
as a whole and for future generations, they do not provide the
current owner of the redwoods with any monetary return.
Setting discount rates can be difficult and controversial.
Proponents cite several reasons for using high discount rates.
One argument is that inflation can reduce the value of future
earnings on a resource. Another is that innovation or changes in
consumer preferences can make a product or resource obsolete.
For example, the plastic composites made to look like redwood
may reduce the future use and market value of timber from a
redwood forest (Figure 23.7).
Critics point out that high discount rates encourage rapid
exploitation of resources for immediate payoffs, thus making
long-term sustainable use of most renewable natural resources
virtually impossible. They argue that a 0% or even a negative
discount rate should be used to protect unique, scarce, and
irreplaceable resources such as old-growth forests. A negative

discount rate would result in the value of a forest or other
resource increasing over time. Some economists argue that as
ecosystem services continue to be degraded, they will only
become more valuable, so a negative discount rate is the only
type that makes sense. They point out that zero or negative
discount rates of -1 to -3% would make it profitable to use
nonrenewable and renewable resources more slowly and in more
sustainable ways.
Critical Thinking
1. If you owned a forested area, would you want the discount
rate for resources such as trees from the forest to be positive,
zero, or negative? Explain.23.2cOptimum Levels of Pollution
Control and Resource Use
An important concept in environmental economics is that
of optimum levels for pollution control and resource use. In the
early days of a new coal mining operation, for example, the cost
of extracting coal is typically low enough to make it easy for
developers to recover their investments by selling their product.
However, the cost of removal goes up with each additional unit
of coal taken. Economists refer to this as the marginal cost—
any increase in the cost of producing an additional unit of a
product. After most of the more readily accessible coal has been
removed from a mine, the marginal cost is too high and at some
point, taking what is left becomes unaffordable. This can
change if some factor such as scarcity raises the value of the
coal remaining in the mine.
Figure 23.8 shows this in terms of supply, demand, and
equilibrium. The point at which removing more coal is not
worth the marginal cost is where the demand curve crosses the
supply curve, theoretically the optimum level of resource use.
Figure 23.8
Optimum resource use: The cost of extracting coal (blue line)
from a particular mine rises with each additional unit removed.
Mining a certain amount of coal is profitable, but at some point,
the marginal cost of further removal exceeds the monetary
benefits (red line).

Critical Thinking:
1. How would the location of the optimum level of resource use
shift if the price of coal doubled?
nito/ Shutterstock.com
You might think that the best solution for pollution is total
cleanup. In fact, there are optimum levels for various kinds of
pollution. This is because the cost of pollution control goes up
for each additional unit of a pollutant removed from the
environment. This increase in cost per additional unit is the
marginal cost of pollution control. The main reason for the
increasing cost is that, as concentrations of a pollutant from the
air, water, or soil get lower, it takes larger amounts of energy to
remove the pollutant. At some point, the cost of removing more
pollutants is greater than the harmful costs of the pollution to
society. That point is the equilibrium point, or the optimum
level for pollution cleanup.23.2dCost–Benefit Analysis
Another widely used tool for making economic decisions about
how to control pollution and manage resources is cost–benefit
analysis. In this process, analysts compare estimated costs and
benefits of actions such as implementing a pollution control
regulation, building a dam on a river, and preserving an area of
forest. Economists also use cost–benefit analysis to estimate the
optimum level of pollution cleanup or resource use (Figure
23.8).
Making a cost–benefit analysis involves determining who
benefits and who is harmed by a particular regulation or project
and estimating the monetary values (costs) of those benefits and
harms. Direct costs involving land, labor, materials, and
pollution-control technologies are often easy to estimate.
However, estimates of indirect costs, such as a project’s effects
on air and water, are not considered in the marketplace.
Analysts can put estimated price tags on human life, good
health, clean air and water, and natural capital such as an
endangered species, a forest, or a wetland. However, such

monetary value estimates vary widely depending on the
assumptions, value judgments, and discount factors used by the
estimators.
Because of these drawbacks, a cost–benefit analysis can lead to
a wide range of benefits and costs with a lot of room for error,
and this is a source of controversy. For example, one cost–
benefit analysis sponsored by a U.S. industry estimated that
compliance with a regulation written to protect American
workers from vinyl chloride would cost $65 billion to $90
billion. In the end, complying with the regulation cost the
industry less than $1 billion. A study by the Economic Policy
Institute of Washington, D.C., found that the estimated costs
projected by industries for complying with proposed U.S.
environmental regulations are often inflated in an effort by
industries to avoid or delay complying with such regulations.
If conducted fairly and accurately, cost–benefit analysis can be
a helpful tool for making economic decisions, but it always
includes uncertainties. Environmental economists advocate
using the following guidelines to minimize possible abuses and
errors in cost–benefit analysis involving some part of the
environment:
· State all assumptions used.
· Include estimates of the ecosystem services provided by the
ecosystems involved.
· Estimate short- and long-term benefits and costs for all
affected population groups.
· Compare the costs and benefits of alternative courses of
action.
According to Gaylord Nelson, founder of the world’s first Earth
Day on April 22, 1970: “When it is asked how much it will cost
to protect the environment, one more question should be asked:
How much will it cost our civilization if we do not?”·
23.3aFull-Cost Pricing
· The market price, or direct price, that people pay for a product
or service usually does not include all of the indirect,
or external, costs of harm to the environment and human health

associated with providing and using them. Such costs are
called hidden costs.
· For example, if someone buys a new car, the price includes
the direct, or internal, costs of raw materials, labor, shipping,
and a markup for dealer profit. In using the car, owners pay
additional direct costs for gasoline, maintenance, repairs, and
insurance.
· However, the extraction and processing of raw materials to
make a car uses energy and mineral resources, disturbs land,
produces solid and hazardous wastes, pollutes air and water, and
releases climate-changing greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere. These hidden external costs can have harmful
effects on people, economies, and on the earth’s life-support
system.
· Because these harmful external costs are not included in the
market price of a car, most people do not connect them with car
ownership. Still, the car buyer and other people in a society pay
these hidden costs sooner or later, in the forms of poorer health,
higher expenses for health care and insurance, higher taxes for
pollution control, traffic congestion, and degradation of natural
capital.
· Ecological economists and environmental experts call for
including external costs of harm to the environment and human
health in the market prices of goods and services. This practice
is called full-cost pricing, and is one of the six principles of
sustainability. Failure to include the estimated harmful
environmental and health costs in the market prices of goods
and services is viewed as one of the major causes of the
environmental problems we face.
· According to its proponents (Individuals Matter 23.1), full -
cost pricing would reduce resource waste, pollution, and
environmental degradation and improve human health. It woul d
also encourage producers to invent more resource-efficient and
less-polluting methods of production, and it would inform
consumers about the environmental and health effects of the
goods and services they buy. For example, if the harmful

environmental and health costs of mining and burning coal to
produce electricity (Figure 23.9) were included in the market
prices of coal-fired electricity, coal would be much more
expensive and likely would be replaced by improved energy
efficiency and less environmentally harmful resources such as
natural gas and solar and wind power.
· Individuals Matter 23.1
· Paul Hawken: Businessman and Environmental Champion
·
· Beck Starr/WireImage/Getty Images
· Paul Hawken understands both business and ecology. He is an
entrepreneur and a visionary environmental and social activist.
In addition to starting several businesses, he has authored
several widely acclaimed books that have been published in
over 50 countries in 27 languages and have sold more than 2
million copies.
· One of Hawken’s major themes has been the importance of
full-cost pricing. As Hawken has pointed out in many of his
writings, the fact that many harmful environmental and health
costs are externalized is a major cause of the global loss and
degradation of natural capital. This happens because of a failure
to implement full-cost pricing and an obsession with the growth
of gross domestic product (GDP) regardless of its effect on the
environment. With our current pricing system, Hawken says,
“we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling
it GDP, and patting ourselves on the back.”
· Hawken calls for us to modify our economies in ways that will
sustain the natural capital that in turn sustains all life and
economies. He is not against economic growth. Instead, he calls
for using government subsidies and taxes to encourage forms of
growth that increase environmental sustainability and social
justice and to discourage forms of growth that harm the
environment and human health.
· According to Hawken, “We have the capacity to create a
remarkably different economy: one that can restore ecosystems

and protect the environment while bringing forth innovation,
prosperity, meaningful work, and true security.” This shift “is
based on the simple but powerful proposition that all natural
capital must be valued. … If we have doubts about how to value
a 500-year-old tree, we need only ask how much would it cost
to make a new one from scratch? Or a new river? Or a new
atmosphere?”
· Hawken has worked with business and government leaders
throughout the world and won numerous awards for his work.
However, his greatest accomplishment may be getting many of
us to rethink our ideas about economics, business, and the
environment.
· Figure 23.9
· Most of the harmful environmental and health effects of strip-
mining coal and burning it to produce electricity are not
included in the cost of electricity.
·
·
· Andreas Reinhold/ Shutterstock.com
· Putting full-cost pricing into practice would result in some
industries and businesses disappearing or remaking themselves.
New businesses would also appear. This is a normal and
revitalizing process in a dynamic and creative capitalist
economy. Shifting to full-cost pricing over a decade or two
would give some environmentally harmful businesses enough
time to transform themselves into profitable, environmentally
beneficial businesses.
· There are three reasons why full-cost pricing is not used more
widely. First, most producers of harmful products and services
would have to charge more for them, and some would go out of
business. Naturally, these producers oppose such
pricing. Second, many environmental and health costs are
difficult to estimate. Third, many environmentally harmful
businesses use their political and economic power to obtain
government subsidies and tax breaks that help them increase
their profits and, in some cases, stay in

business.23.3bEnvironmentally Beneficial Subsidies
Some subsides, called perverse subsidies, lead to environmental
damage and harmful health effects. Examples include depletion
subsidies and tax breaks for extracting minerals and fossil fuels,
cutting timber on public lands, and irrigating with low -cost
water. These subsidies and tax breaks distort the economic
playing field and create a huge economic incentive for
unsustainable resource waste, depletion, and environmental
degradation.
Environmental scientist Norman Myers estimates that these
perverse subsidies and tax breaks cost the world’s governments
(taxpayers) at least $2 trillion a year—an average $3.8 million a
minute. This amount is larger than all but a few of the national
economies in the world and twice as large as all of the world’s
military spending. Myers also estimates that perverse
government subsidies and tax breaks cost the average American
taxpayer $2,000 per year.
$3.8 Million
Estimated cost per minute to the world’s taxpayers of perverse
subsidies
A number of environmental scientists and ecological economists
call for phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies and tax
breaks and phasing in environmentally beneficial subsidies and
tax breaks. More subsidies and tax breaks would go businesses
involved in pollution prevention, waste prevention, sustainable
forestry and agriculture, conservation of water supplies, energy-
efficiency improvements, renewable energy use, and measures
to slow projected climate change.
However, economically and politically powerful interests
receiving these environmentally harmful subsidies spend a lot
of time and money lobbying, or trying to influence governments
to continue and even to increase their subsidies. For example,
the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries in the United States
are mature and highly profitable industries that get billions of
dollars in government subsidies and tax breaks every year. Such

industries also lobby against subsidies and tax breaks for their
more environmentally beneficial competitors such as solar and
wind energy.
Some countries have reduced perverse subsidies. Japan, France,
and Belgium have phased out all coal subsidies. China has cut
coal subsidies by about 73% and has imposed a tax on high-
sulfur coals.
Making a shift from environmentally harmful to
environmentally beneficial subsidies and tax breaks on a global
basis over the next 2 to 3 decades would encourage businesses
to make the transition from environmentally harmful to more
environmentally beneficial goods and services.
Critical Thinking
· Can you think of any problems that might result from phasing
out environmentally harmful government subsidies and tax
breaks and phasing in environmentally beneficial ones? How
might such a subsidy shift affect your
lifestyle?23.3cEnvironmental Indicators
Economic growth is usually measured by the percentage of
change per year in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP):
the annual market value of all goods and services produced by
all firms and organizations, foreign and domestic, operating
within a country. A country’s economic growth per person is
measured by changes in the per capita GDP: the GDP divided by
the country’s total population at midyear.
GDP and per capita GDP indicators provide a standardized,
useful method for measuring and comparing the economic
outputs of nations. However, the GDP was deliberately designed
to measure such outputs without taking into account their
beneficial or harmful environmental or health impacts. Many
environmental economists and environmental scientists call for
the development and widespread use of new indicators—
called environmental indicators—to help monitor environmental
quality and human well-being.
One such indicator is the genuine progress indicator (GPI)—the
GDP plus the estimated value of beneficial transactions that

meet basic needs, minus the estimated harmful environmental,
health, and social costs of all transactions. Examples of
beneficial transactions included in the GPI are unpaid volunteer
work, health care provided by family members, child care, and
housework. Harmful costs that are subtracted to arrive at the
GPI include the costs of pollution, resource depletion and
degradation, and crime.
Figure 23.10 compares the per capita GDP and GPI for the
United States between 1950 and 2004 (the last year in which the
GPI was compiled). While the per capita GDP rose sharply over
this period, the per capita GPI stayed flat, or in some cases even
declined slightly. This shows that even if a nation’s economy is
growing, its people are not necessarily better off.
Environmental economists developed the GPI with the hope that
governments would adopt it. However, it has not been
implemented by any of the world’s economies.
Figure 23.10
Monitoring environmental progress: The per capita gross
domestic product (GDP) compared with the per capita genuine
progress indicator (GPI) in the United States between 1950 and
2004.
Critical Thinking:
1. Would you favor making widespread use of this or similar
green economic indicators? Why or why not? Why do you think
this has not been done?
(Compiled by the authors using data from Redefining Progress.)
Another environmental indicator is the Global Green Economy
Index (GGEI). It measures the performances of 130 nations in
areas of leadership on climate change, energy efficiency,
markets and investments, and natural capital, based on analysis
by a panel of experts. In 2018, the top five ranked countri es on
the GGEI were Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, and
Finland. The United States ranked 42nd.
These and other environmental indicators now being developed

are far from perfect. However, without such indicators, it will
be difficult to monitor the overall effects of human activities on
human health, on the environment, and on the planet’s natural
capital and to evaluate the effectiveness of solutions to the
environmental problems humanity faces. Such indicators are
also helpful for finding the best ways to improve environmental
quality and life satisfaction.
23.3dTaxing Pollution and Wastes Instead of Wages and Profits
Another way to discourage pollution and resource waste is to
tax them. Green taxes could be levied on a per-unit basis on the
amount of pollution and hazardous waste produced by a farm,
business, or industry, and on the use of fossil fuels, nitrogen
fertilizer, timber, minerals, water, and other resources. This
approach would implement the full-cost pricing principle of
sustainability and increase our beneficial environmental impact.
To many analysts, the tax systems in most countries are
backward. They discourage what we want more of—jobs,
income, and profit-driven innovation—and encourage what we
want less of—pollution, resource waste, and environmental
degradation. A more environmentally sustainable economic and
political system would lower taxes on labor, income, and
wealth, and raise taxes on environmental activities that produce
pollution, wastes, and environmental degradation. Some 2,500
economists, including eight Nobel Prize winners in economics,
have endorsed this tax-shifting concept.
Proponents list three requirements for the successful shift to
more environmentally sustainable or green taxes:
· Phase in green taxes over 10 to 20 years to allow business to
plan for change.
· Reduce income, payroll, or other taxes by an amount equal to
that of the green taxes so that there would be no net increase in
taxes.
· Design a safety net for the poor and lower-middle class
individuals who would suffer financially from any new taxes on
essentials such as fuel, water, electricity, and food.
Figure 23.11 lists some of the advantages and disadvantages of

using green taxes.
Figure 23.11
Trade-offs: Using green taxes to help reduce pollution and
resource waste has advantages and disadvantages.
Critical Thinking:
1. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Why or why
not?
Top: Chuong Vu/ Shutterstock.com. Bottom:
EduardSV/ Shutterstock.com.
In Europe and the United States, polls indicate that once such
tax shifting is explained to voters, 70% of them support the
idea. Germany’s green tax on fossil fuels, introduced in 1999,
has reduced pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, helped to
create up to 250,000 new jobs, lowered taxes on wages, and
greatly increased the use of renewable energy resources. Costa
Rica, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and the Netherlands have raised
taxes on several environmentally harmful activities while
cutting taxes on wages, investment income, or both.
To help reduce climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions,
since 1997, Costa Rica has imposed a 3.5% tax on the market
values of any fossil fuels that are burned in the country. The tax
revenues go into a national forest fund set up for paying
indigenous communities to help protect the forests around them,
thereby helping to reverse deforestation (Chapter 10, Core Case
Study). The fund is also intended to help Costa Ricans work
their way out of poverty. Costa Rica has also taxed water use to
reduce water waste and pollution, and the tax revenues are used
to pay villagers living upstream to reduce their inputs of water
pollutants.
The U.S. Congress has not enacted green taxes, mostly because
of opposition by the automobile, fossil fuel, mining, chemical
and other politically powerful industries. These opponents claim
that green taxes will harm the economy and consumers by
forcing producers to raise the prices of their goods and services.
In addition, most voters have been conditioned to oppose any

new taxes and have not been educated about the economic and
environmental benefits of a tax-shifting approach that would
improve environmental quality with no net increase in their
taxes.
23.3eUsing Cap-and-Trade to Reduce Pollution and Resource
Waste
In one incentive-based regulation system, the government
decides on acceptable levels of total pollution or resource use;
sets limits, or caps, to maintain these levels; and gives or sells
companies a certain number of tradable pollution or resource-
use permits governed by the caps.
With this cap-and-trade approach, a permit holder that does not
use its entire allocation can save credits for future expansion,
use them in other parts of its operation, or sell them to other
companies. The United States has used this approach to reduce
the emissions of sulfur dioxide (see Chapter 18) and several
other air pollutants. Tradable rights could also be established
among countries to help preserve biodiversity and to reduce
emissions of greenhouse gases (Figure 19.23) and other regional
and global pollutants.
Figure 23.12 lists the advantages and disadvantages of using
tradable pollution and resource-use permits (cap-and-trade). The
effectiveness of such programs depends on how high or low the
initial cap is set and on the rate at which the cap is regularl y
reduced to encourage further innovation.
Figure 23.12
Trade-offs:Cap-and Trade: Using tradable pollution and
resource-use permits to reduce pollution and resource waste has
advantages and disadvantages.
Critical Thinking:
1. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Why or why
not?
Top: M. Shcherbyna/ Shutterstock.com.· 23.3fLabeling
Environmentally Beneficial Goods and Services
· Product eco-labeling and certification can encourage

companies to develop environmentally beneficial (green)
products and services and can help consumers to select such
products and services. Eco-labeling programs have been
developed in Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United States. The
U.S. Green Seal labeling program has certified more than 335
products and services as environmentally friendly based on life-
cycle analysis. Eco-labels are also used to identify fish caught
by sustainable methods (certified by the Marine Stewardship
Council) and to certify timber produced and harvested by
sustainable methods (evaluated by organizations such as the
Forest Stewardship Council, see Chapter 10, Improving
Management of Forest Fires).
· Eco-labeling systems usually include a simple rating scale
such as 0–10, applied to factors such as environmental damage,
climate impact, carbon footprint, air and water pollution, and
energy, water, and pesticide use. Such eco-labeling informs
consumers about the environmental impacts of what they buy
and helps them vote with their wallets.
· Providing easily understandable ratings on the sustainabilit y
of goods and services helps expose and reduce greenwashing, a
deceptive practice that some businesses use to spin
environmentally harmful products and services as green, clean,
or environmentally beneficial. For example, in 2008, the U.S.
coal industry spent about $45 million on a successful public
relations campaign to imbed the words “clean coal” in the minds
of Americans, even though certain harmful aspects of mining
and using coal will always make it by far the dirtiest fossil fuel
(Chapter 15, and Figure 23.9).
· Other examples of greenwashing, closer to home for most
people, can mislead consumers and distort market information,
making it harder for environmentally beneficial products and
services to compete. For example, phrases like
“environmentally friendly” and “eco-conscious” placed on
cleaning product labels can be meaningless or false. Consumers
who want to buy green must be careful to choose products that
actually are environmentally friendly.· 23.3gEnvironmental

Laws and Regulations
· Environmental regulation is a form of government intervention
in the marketplace that is widely used to help control or prevent
pollution and environmental degradation and to encourage more
efficient resource use. It involves enacting and enforcing laws
that set pollution standards, regulate the release of toxic
chemicals into the environment, and protect certain slowly
replenished resources such as public forests, parks, and
wilderness areas (Figure 23.13) from unsustainable use.
· Figure 23.13
· Environmental regulations have helped preserve irreplaceable
resources such as this mountainous National Wilderness Area
near Aspen, Colorado.
·
·
· Charles Kogod/National Geographic Image Collection
· Such regulation is another way to help implement the full -cost
pricing principle of sustainability, because it forces companies
to include more of the costs of pollution control and other
regulated aspects in the prices of their products. Opponents of
regulation claim that it can slow economic growth and lead to
job losses
· However, proponents of regulation point to the results of
China’s lax environmental regulations. While that country’s
economy has been growing rapidly since 1980, its
environmental problems have also multiplied dramatically.
Now, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, its major
cities suffer from serious air pollution. About 57% of its urban
groundwater, used for drinking water for hundreds of millions
of people, and 43% of its surface water is too polluted to use.
Its topsoil is severely polluted and some of its food is tainted
with harmful chemicals. These problems are leading to civil
unrest in China, as well as to a less favorable standing in the
global marketplace.
· Most environmental regulation in the United States and in
many other countries has involved passing laws that are

typically enforced through a command-and-control approach.
Critics say that this strategy can unnecessarily increase costs
and discourage innovation, because many of these government
regulations concentrate on cleanup instead of prevention. Some
regulations also set compliance deadlines that are often too
short to allow companies to find innovative ways to reduce
pollution and waste.
· A different approach favored by many economists and
environmental and business leaders is to use incentive-based
environmental regulations. Rather than to require all companies
in a particular market to follow the same fixed procedures or
use the same technologies, governments can establish long-term
goals and heavy penalties for not achieving the goals. This
approach uses the economic forces of the marketplace to
encourage businesses to be innovative in reducing pollution and
resource waste.
· Several European nations use such innovation-friendly
environmental regulation, which involves setting goals, freeing
industries to meet the goals in any way that works, and allowing
enough time for innovation. This has motivated several
companies to develop green products and industrial processes
that have created jobs. It has also helped some companies to
boost their profits while becoming more competitive in national
and international markets.23.3hSelling Services Instead of
Products
One approach to working toward more environmentally
beneficial economies is to sell certain services in place of the
products that provide those services. With this approach, a
manufacturer or service provider makes more money if the
production of its product involves minimal material use and
pollution, and if the product lasts, is energy efficient, produces
as little pollution as possible while in use, and is easy to
maintain, repair, reuse, or recycle (see Chapter 21, Core Case
Study).
Such an economic shift is under way in some businesses. Since
1992, Xerox has been leasing most of its copy machines as part

of its mission to provide document services instead of selling
photocopiers. When a customer’s service contract expires,
Xerox takes the machine back for reuse or remanufacture. It has
a goal of sending no material to landfills or incinerators. To
save money, Xerox designs machines to have the fewest
possible parts, be energy efficient, and emit as little noise, heat,
ozone, and chemical waste as possible.
Learning from Nature
At the flooring service company Interface, engineers studied the
floors of tropical forests to design a best-selling, nature-based
carpet pattern that allows installers to reduce carpet waste and
installation time.
In Europe, Carrier has begun shifting from selling heating and
air conditioning equipment to providing indoor heating and
cooling services. The company makes higher profits by leasing
and installing energy-efficient equipment that is durable and
easy to rebuild or recycle. Carrier also makes money through
helping clients save energy by adding insulation, eliminating
heat losses, and boosting energy efficiency in their offices and
homes.
Critical Thinking
· Can you think of any drawbacks to leasing a service provided
by a product instead of buying the product? What service or
services would you consider leasing?23.4aReducing Poverty
Poverty occurs when people cannot meet their basic needs for
food, water, shelter, health care, and education. People
suffering from extreme poverty (Figure 23.14) live on less than
$1.90 a day. According to the World Bank and the World Data
Lab, 8.2% of the world’s people lived in extreme poverty in
2018—down from 36% in 1990. This is good news but the bad
news is that 627 million people—almost twice the U.S.
population—lived in extreme poverty in 2018.
Figure 23.14
This 3-year-old girl was sleeping in her family’s shack in a
slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

James P. Blair/National Geographic Creative
Some analysts are alarmed at the widening gap between rich and
poor countries and between super-rich individuals and the rest
of the world. According to Oxfam International, 82% of wealth
generated worldwide in 2017 went to the richest 1% of the
world’s population, while the 3.8 billion of the poorest half of
the world’s population had no increase in their wealth. Eighty-
five billionaires have as much of the world’s w ealth as the
bottom half of the world’s population. Some economists say that
part of this wealth will trickle down to the poor and middle
class. Others point out that for three decades, instead of
trickling down, most of the world’s wealth has been flowing up
to rich individuals, corporations, and countries at an increasing
rate. This has greatly increased the economic gap between the
rich and the poor and has reduced the middle class.
82%
Percentage of wealth generated worldwide in 2017 that went to
the richest 1% of the world’s population
Poverty causes a number of harmful health effects such as
hunger, malnutrition (Figure 12.3), and infectious disease, and
it kills an estimated 11 million people per year—more deaths
than from any other major cause (see Figure 17.21). Another
effect of poverty is illness caused by limited access to adequate
sanitation facilities and clean drinking water. More than one-
third of world’s people have no bathroom facilities and are
forced to use backyards, alleys, ditches, and streams. As a
result, one of every nine of the world’s people get water for
drinking, washing, and cooking from sources polluted by human
and animal feces. Poverty also leads to harmful health effects
and deaths from indoor air pollution (Figure 18.15).
In 2017, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that
malnutrition and indoor air pollution, mostly related to poverty,
were killing about 7 million children under age 5 each year —an
average of 19,000 young children per day. This is equivalent

to 95 fully loaded 200-passenger airliners crashing every day
with no survivors. The news media rarely cover this ongoing
human tragedy.
To reduce poverty and its harmful effects, governments,
businesses, international lending agencies, and wealthy
individuals could undertake the following:
· Mount a massive global effort to combat malnutrition and the
infectious diseases that kill millions of people.
· Provide universal primary school education for all children
and for the world’s 750 million illiterate adults. Illiteracy can
foster terrorism and strife within countries by contributing to
the creation of large numbers of unemployed individuals who
have little hope of improving their lives or those of their
children.
· Help less-developed countries reduce their population growth,
mostly by elevating the social and economic status of women,
reducing poverty, and providing access to family planning.
· Focus on sharply reducing the total and per capita ecological
footprints of more-developed countries such as the United
States and less-developed countries such as China and India.
· Make large investments in small-scale infrastructure such as
solar-cell power facilities for rural villages and sustainable
agriculture projects to help less-developed nations work toward
more energy-efficient and environmentally beneficial
economies.
· Encourage lending agencies to make small loans to poor
people who want to increase their income (see the Case
Study that follows).
Case Study
Microlending
Most of the world’s able-bodied poor people want to work and
earn enough to climb out of poverty and make a better life for
themselves and their families. With small loans, they could buy
what they need to start farms or small businesses. However, few
of them have credit records or assets that they could use as

collateral to secure the loans.
For over three decades, an innovation called microlending,
or microfinance, has helped a number of people living in
poverty to deal with this problem. In 1983, economist
Muhammad Yunus started the Grameen (Village) Bank in
Bangladesh, a country with a high poverty rate and a rapidly
growing population. Unlike commercial banks, the Grameen
Bank is essentially owned and run by borrowers and by the
Bangladeshi government. Since it was founded, the bank has
provided more than $8 billion in microloans of $50 to $500 at
low interest rates to more than 7 million impoverished people in
Bangladesh who do not qualify for loans at traditional banks.
Most of these loans have been used by women to start small
businesses, plant crops, buy small irrigation pumps, buy cows
and chickens for producing and selling milk and eggs, and buy
bicycles for transportation. Microloans are also used to develop
day-care centers, health-care clinics, reforestation projects,
drinking water supply projects, literacy programs, and small-
scale solar- and wind-power systems in rural villages (Figure
23.15).
Figure 23.15
A microloan helped these women in a rural village in India to
buy a small solar-cell panel (installed on the roof behind them)
that provides electricity to help them make a living, thus
applying the solar energy principle of sustainability.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
The Grameen Bank’s average repayment rate on its microloans
has been 95% or higher. That is nearly twice the average
repayment rate for loans by conventional commercial banks—
and the Grameen Bank consistently made a profit. Typically,
about half of Grameen’s borrowers move above the poverty line
within 5 years of receiving their loans.
Since 1975, the Grameen Bank’s innovative approach helped to
reduce the poverty rate in Bangladesh from 74% to 40%,
primarily because of the hard work of the people receiving the

microloans. In addition, birth rates are lower among most of the
borrowers, a majority of whom are women, because the loans
have given them more freedom and control over their lives.
One of the bank’s goals was to help protect borrowers from loan
sharks who were charging high interest rates and bankrupting
many people. Unfortunately, some loan sharks and commercial
companies have moved into the microfinance sector and turned
it to their advantage, which has given microlending a bad name
in some areas.
However, Yunus and his supporters point out that microlending,
when done properly, can help people escape poverty and
improve their lives. In 2006, Yunus and his colleagues at the
bank jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering use
of microcredit loans that change people’s lives. He has stated,
“Unleashing the energy and creativity in each huma n being is
the answer to poverty.” Banks based on the Grameen
microcredit model have spread to 58 countries (including the
United States) with an estimated 500 million participants.
Ecologist and Geographic Explorer Sasha Kramer has been
working in the impoverished and ecologically degraded nation
of Haiti to attack the problems of hunger, topsoil depletion, and
water pollution all at once. Her nonprofit organization has
distributed waterless composting toilets throughout the country
to collect human wastes and transform them into compost,
which Haitian farmers can use to rebuild depleted soil and boost
food production. This process also keeps human wastes out of
Haiti’s water supply and reduces the dangerous threat of
waterborne infectious diseases.
23.4bMillennium Development Goals and Sustainable
Development Goals
In 2000, the world’s nations set goals—called Millennium
Development Goals—for sharply reducing hunger and poverty,
improving health care, achieving universal primary education,
empowering women, and moving toward environmental
sustainability by 2015. That year, the United Nations published
its Progress Chart showing highly mixed results in reaching the

goals. Most countries did well in expanding primary education
while women’s representation in national parliaments did not
improve in most places. Many countries succeeded in bringing
clean drinking water to most of their citizens while some
countries did very poorly.
More-developed countries pledged to donate 0.7%—or $7 of
every $1,000—of their annual national income to less-developed
countries to help them in achieving these goals. So far,
Denmark, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands
have donated what they had promised. In fact, the average
amount donated in most years has been 0.25% of national
income. The United States—the world’s richest country—gives
only 0.16% of its national income and Japan, another wealthy
country, gives only 0.18% compared with 0.9% given by
Sweden. For any country, deciding whether or not to help
poorer countries in this way is an ethical issue that requires
individuals and nations to evaluate their priorities (Figure
23.16).
Figure 23.16
What should our priorities be?
Critical Thinking:
1. Which items on the right side of the figure would you do
without or reduce to pay for solving some of the problems listed
on the left side of the figure?
(Compiled by the authors using data from United Nations,
World Health Organization, U.S. Department of Commerce,
U.S. Office of Management and Budget, World Bank, Earth
Policy Institute, and Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute.)
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a target date of
2030. The goals include elimination of poverty and hunger and
providing, for all people, good health and well-being, a quality
education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation,

affordable and clean energy, and decent jobs. The goals also
include, for all nations, economic growth, industry innovation
and infrastructure, sustainable cities and communities, and
peace, justice, and strong institutions. The goals are aimed at
encouraging responsible consumption and production, slowing
climate change, and protecting ocean life and life on land.
In 2015, the 193 member nations of the United Nations adopted
these goals. By 2018, no country was on track to achieve all of
the Sustainable Development Goals.
Critical Thinking
1. Which five of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals do
you think are the most important? Why?
23.5aLow-Throughput Economies
The three scientific laws governing matter and energy changes
(see Chapter 2, Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy
Changes Obey Two Scientific Laws) and the six principles of
sustainability suggest that the best long-term solution to our
environmental and resource problems is to shift away from a
high-throughput (high-waste) economies based on ever-
increasing matter and energy flow (Figure 23.4) over the next
few decades. The goal would be to develop more
sustainable low-throughput (low-waste) economies based on
energy efficiency and matter recycling (Figure 23.17). Such
economies would work with nature to reduce inefficient use and
excessive throughputs of matter and energy resources and the
resulting pollution and wastes.
Figure 23.17
Solution
s: Learning and applying lessons from nature can help us design
and manage more sustainable low-throughput economies.

Critical Thinking:
1. What are three ways in which your school could decrease any
unsustainable economic and environmental practices, and three
ways that it could promote more sustainable economic and
environmental practices?
A low-throughput economy works by
1. reusing and recycling most nonrenewable matter resources;
2. using renewable resources no faster than natural processes
can replenish them;
3. reducing resource waste by using matter and energy resources
more efficiently;
4. reducing environmentally harmful forms of consumption; and
5. promoting pollution prevention and waste reduction.
Some experts would add that such an economy works best when
population growth can be slowed so that the number of matter
and energy consumers grows slowly, and eventually, not at all.
Some environmental scientists suggest that an important step in
shifting to a low-throughput economy is to relocalize economies
so that communities can depend more on their local resources.
For example, Kelly Cain and his colleagues (Science Focus
22.1) have created a computer model for estimating the amount
of money and other resources that leave any community that
imports most of its food, usually through large retailers. Cain

argues that such a community can save large amounts of money
and shrink its ecological footprint by learning how to produce
much more of its own food and energy from renewable sources
such as the sun, wind, and biomass.
One highly successful example of relocalizing an economy, and
of Germany’s shift to renewable energy (Core Case Study), is
the small windswept rural village of Feldheim, south of Berlin,
with a population of about 150. There a young energy
entrepreneur, interested in relocalizing energy production,
invested in a small number of wind turbines. The village
followed his lead and built its own power grid, along with a
biogas plant that produces natural gas from corncobs, pig
manure, and other farm wastes. Today the village produces all
of its own heat and electricity and has a zero-carbon footprint
and full employment. It makes a profit by selling the excess
energy it produces to major power companies for use in
Germany’s electrical grid system.
23.5bShifting to More Sustainable Economies
Figure 23.18 shows some of the components of societies that
have more sustainable economic systems. A common goal of
such systems is to put more emphasis on conserving and
sustaining the air, water, soil, biodiversity, and other natural
resources and ecosystem services that in turn sustain all life and
all economies.

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