Marginal Concept of Tropical Forests and Our Future

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Table of Contents

Businesses Opening up Coal Mines and Exploiting Natural Resources
The Relevance of Marginal Concepts to the Destruction of the Rainforest
Marginal Concepts Helping to Establish Strategies to Conserve Natural Resources
Works Cited

Businesses Opening up Coal Mines and Exploiting Natural Resources

It is easily agreeable that the demand for fuel products all over the world continue to increase. In this respect, it may be argued that any attempt made to substitute or supplement the existing fuel production units is likely to be an economically viable and lucrative business. Owing to this fact, there would be a possibility that prospective entrepreneurs would be almost readily willing to engage in coal mining due to the prospects it holds.

Climate Change and Environmental Concerns

In recent times, there has been an agitation by world leaders, environmentalists and general public to look keenly into the issue of global warming and climate change in general. Although coal mining has its own effects on the environment, it has been demonstrated that oil production poses a greater threat to the environment than any other energy source. Coal mining may thus offer some reprieve to this problem, hence the possibility of businesses opening up coal mines.

Business Diversification

In today’s competitive world, businesses are continuously looking at ways of investing for the purposes of diversifying their operations (Zerbe and Dwight 52). Therefore, coal mining would make a good business option for an organization that has the financial muscle to carry out the exercise. There would be a high possibility that it would be a worthwhile decision given the demand of alternative sources of energy world over.

Change in Government Policies

The role of the government in determining how business is carried out cannot be looked down upon. The government has often been seen to put in place what may not be very favorable policies towards mining of coal perhaps guided by the dangers that are posed by the activity environmentally. For instance, there have been efforts to cap carbon dioxide emissions by about five percent (Myers 91). This means that all activities that are seen as contributors to carbon dioxide emission must be put in check. Coal mining is part of these activities thus opening coal mines may be heavily dependent on how easily the government would make mining policies favorable for entrepreneurs.

Government policies ability to influence opening of coal mines may also be looked at from the need to create job opportunities. Governments are grappling with the challenges of several unemployed citizens who are willing, able and skilled to work but there are scarce opportunities for them. Therefore, the government might encourage opening up of mines as a way of creating job opportunities through formulation of favorable policies.

Demand for Alternative Sources of Energy

It has been noted that there is dire need for alternative sources of energy to add into oil products. This drive has seen innovations that are geared towards enhancing available sources of energy and where possible substituting energy from oil. In view of this factor, coal mining may be presented as an alternative to the ever increasing demand of energy. By closely examining the energy demands of various countries, we may argue that opening of coal mines may provide a supplement to existing units of energy sources.

The Relevance of Marginal Concepts to the Destruction of the Rainforest

The relevance of marginal concepts to destruction of rainforests may be understood from application of various concepts that are used to evaluate economic significance on various aspects.

In relation to rainy forests, marginal utility may be used to examine how the land will be utilized and in the case when rain forests will are cleared. In other words, it may be looked at from the perspective of the activities that land will be used. For instance, if the land that has forest cover is meant for farming once the rainy forests are cleared, then the economic gains derived from farming must be put into scale while at the same time looking at the economic losses that might be accrued from clearing the rainy forests. The main factor to consider in both instances is how well these resources will be utilized to make economic gains (Kevine 19).

Marginal benefit will also be used as a scale to show how the land cleared will be of benefit to the community. At this point, it may be obvious that creating farm lands will be of greater profit than maintaining rainy forest or vice versa. Marginal benefit will thus interrogate the advantages or disadvantages brought by the decrease in rainy forests while measuring them against those brought by an increase in mine lands or farm lands. The use of marginal concepts will contribute in the overall decision making of whether to conserve or clear off the rain forest (Levin and Patrick 20).

The rate of transformation may also be calculated using the marginal rate of transformation concept. It is notable that so much will have to be foregone or sacrificed if the rainy forests are to be destroyed (Myers 91). At the same time, there will be need to sustain energy production as well as food production and overall, there is need to utilize land for other purposes. How fast or slow these changes will affect the rain forest is a crucial factor to consider that may be calculated by marginal concepts.

Marginal rate of substitution will be useful in scaling between the least favorable of ideas in saving or consuming the rain forest. There is a high possibility that conserving the rainy forest will be of more worthy course (Birkhauser 2). The economics behind the decision making in regard to conserving rain forest may use the concept of marginal rate of substitution to find out whether there are less harmful effects brought about by the destruction of rainy forests thus, a decision to substitute them with viable projects like farming or mining will be reached.

The marginal physical product concept may be used to analyze the overall effect that may be realized as a result of increasing the area used for farming while reducing the total area covered by the rain forest. This concept basically investigates the input brought by an increase or decrease that results from one factor. In this case, the decrease of rain forest and increase of mine or farm areas may be looked into.

There is also the marginal concept referred to as the marginal prosperity to save. Although this idea is often looked at in calculation of an individual’s income and their saving, it may be relevant in assessing the destruction of rain forest where the ability of the nation to pursue other resources that may cater for the needs provided for by rain forests and in the long run, reducing destruction witnessed in the rain forests

Marginal Concepts Helping to Establish Strategies to Conserve Natural Resources

From the analysis of the relevance of marginal concepts in informing decisions made in regard to the destruction of rain forest, it can be deduced that these concepts may play a key role in determining the way forward. To start with, understanding of marginal concepts, as demonstrated earlier may be used to determine which of the options between preserving and consuming rain forests is more viable. If the current agitation to conserve the environment is anything to go by, we can safely conclude that marginal concepts of production and utility are likely to find the economic value of rain forest much higher and may advocate for strategies that look into their conservation rather than destruction of rain forests.

Understanding of marginal values may also be seen as a factor that tends to give insight into a subject. In other words, there will be deliberate effort to gather as much information as possible regarding rain forests and how they contribute to the overall gain in the ecosystem (Kingma 96). In the process of searching for this information, important issues that might not be understood from narrow examination of the whole issue may emerge. These discussions will be essential in formulating polices that are meant to safeguard rain forests. For instance, it is not easy to determine whether there is need to expand mines at the expense of rain forests at the site within forest area.

Polices and strategies are borne out of a desire to improve a situation. Marginal analysis on the effects of destruction of rain forest is likely to reveal the overwhelming disadvantages that might result from massive interruption with the rain forest. This revelation will most likely get to some influential policy makers who might help in pushing the process of putting down strategies to save the rain forest. Here, understanding of marginal concepts will help, unlike in other studies, the recommendations that may be borne out of these studies may be end up being implemented.

The purposes of doing an analysis on various economic issues sometimes goes to as far as highlighting the difficulties that may come along with the failure to implement other strategies that are relevant to the situation. Understanding marginal concepts may help in pointing out some of the challenges that are likely to face the whole process of strategy making in regard to saving the rain forest. This way, efforts will be made to ensure that the policies laid out will be all encompassing in that, they will accommodate some of the things that would have otherwise been forgone (Zerbe and Dwight 2).

Basically, marginal concepts assist in the measure of pro and cons of a particular good or service. The ability of the world’s nations to exploit oil has for long been debated around the globe. Despite the knowledge of existence of oil deposits that have not been exploited, it may not be easy to ascertain whether exploitation of these sources of energy will add up to be economically sensible neither would it be easy and cheaper to get energy from such sources.

Works Cited

Birkhauser, Basie. The Australian Rainforest of West Africa: Ecology Threats Conservation. Australia: Harper Collins, 1992. Print.

Kevine, David, The economics of information. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1995. Print.

Kingma, Bruce. The economics of information: a guide to economic and cost-benefit analysis for information professionals, New Yolk: Libraries Unlimited, 1996. Print.

Levin, Henry and Patrick McEwan. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: Methods and Applications. London: Sage Publications, 2000. Print.

Myers, Newton. The primary Source Tropical Forests and our future. New York: Nortorn Publishers, 1991. Print.

Zerbe, Richard and Dwight Dively. Benefit-cost analysis in theory and practice. London: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1994. Print.

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