Course:ECON371/UBCO2009WT1/GROUP3/Article6
Article 6: "No fish in city waters 50 years on"
"No fish in city waters 50 years on"
Summary
Due to pollution and overharvesting, experts warn that within the next half century there may not be any marine life left in the seas near major cities such as Mumbai--marine conservationists claim that around 100 species of mollusks have already become locally extinct in the last 35 years. The article also states that “the ocean is a borderless blue world” and that pollutants from one city affect sea-life in other cities. The pollutants that threaten the sea life are “heavy metal[s], paint, lead and detergents” emitted by industry. The article claims that these pollutants also render the fish and crabs in the local area unfit for human consumption which affects those involved in the local markets.
Analysis
There are two main issues affecting marine life around Mumbai:
1. Industry frequently discharges wastes into water which makes the sea hazardous for fish to live in.
2. People overharvest fish in the sea.
Possible Solutions for Issue 1: Industrial Discharge
Solution 1. Government measures the water quality in the sea and the wastes discharged by each industry. Based on the wastes discharged by each industry, government could make damage estimations due to these industrial wastes. The government could then determine an efficient uniform standard for all industries such that the amount of wastes discharged into water will result in an acceptable ambient concentration of emissions.
Solution 2. Government could raise the uniform emissions tax. Each industry will choose a new efficient emission level based on its marginal abasement cost, which will lower than the old efficient emission level because of the higher tax. Then government can use the tax paid by industries to clean up water.
Benefit and cost for solution 1:
Benefit:
-reduction in emission in the water due to uniform standard, resulting in better water quality and a better environment for marine life to flourish.
-easier for government to monitor the waste discharged by each industries to avoid over some industries over discharging wastes.
-some of emissions are toxic, a uniform standard of zero(effectively) could be put in place.
-gives impression that decisive action is being taken on the issue.
Cost:
-uniform standard will result higher social control costs than individual standard.
-Industries will have weak technology incentives.
-uniform standards are rarely efficient as they don't consider different MAC curves for different industries.
Benefit and cost for solution 2:
Benefit:
-reduction in emission in the water due to higher emission tax
-industries will have strong technology incentives. If the innovation helps industry have lower marginal abasement cost, social control costs will lower.
Cost:
-Uniform tax result very high social control costs and some industries may have to be shut down if the tax is too high for them.
-hard for government to monitor the waste discharged by each industries because industry may have lower marginal abasement cost due to innovation.
Possible Solutions for Issue 2: Overfishing
Solution 1. Government assigns property rights to fisheries. The sea was a public good before, where everyone could enjoy harvesting fish freely resulting in overuse and damage to the environment. But if the sea is a private good, fisheries will protect the environment and rise fish. Fishers can also negotiate with industries about the amount of wastes they discharge, making agreements that result in more social benefit.
Solution 2. Government issues fish harvest policy and moral suasion. For example, limits could be placed on the size of catches and fishers are not allowed to catch fish during the reproduction season for fish. Fines could be put into place for violators. Government can also set up a progressive program and policy based on the amount of the fish people caught (the more fish they catch, the higher proportion of tax they need to pay for).
Benefit and cost for solution 1:
Benefit:
-avoid free rider
-acheive higher social benefit
-sustainable economy
Cost:
-some fishers will lose jobs
-emission level can be very large if industries have very low marginal abatement cost
Benefit and cost for solution 2:
Benefit:
-sustainable economy
-moral consideration
Cost:
-richer fishers could catch more fish but poor fishers would catch less fish
-some fishers will lose job during the fish reproduction season.
Recurring Themes
Once again heavy metal pollution pops up in an article. From e-waste to religious idols to festival powders to industrial waste, it seems that heavy metals, most notably lead, remain a source of concern for those worried about the environment. Health Canada states that "Lead is a metal of high cumulative toxicity with no known biological role." and that "It has been suggested that there is no minimum level of lead exposure which will not adversely affect human health (59).". If this is the case, that it is both cumulative and toxic, then even if stopped today, the lead pollution from the past will have to be cleaned up by people before it ceases to be a risk to the population. The externalities lead use presents will have to dealt with at some point and there's no advantage to ignoring the problem unless the government assumes that in the future they'll be innovations that allow easy heavy metal cleanup. For now, the heavy metal pollution situation suggests that India will follow the pessimistic scenario from the text book, which shows environmental quality shrinking and hence the number of goods produced at the current environmental quality also shrinking. In order to produce more they will have to go to an even lower environmental quality. That this affects somewhere around 17% of the world's population, the situation is quite alarming. International pressure might be a form of moral suasion that should be applied.
Health Canada's website: Link: Link to quoted Lead Toxicity page
Conclusion
The main problem here is that the ocean is an open-access resource. Industry is free to dump their emissions into it and anyone who wants to is free to fish in it. As there is no costs involved for industry to dump into the ocean the costs of their products do not factor in the external cost of their pollution which implies that the market cost of their product is too low. As there are no costs to fishers for the fish they take, the price of fish on the market is also too low. Finding ways in which these externalities can be included in production costs is key in creating efficient use of ocean resources which would result in an ocean enivronment that is mutually beneficial to industry, locals and marine life.
Prof's Comments
An important thing to consider is the practicality of the policies. In Mumbai and other developing nation cities, who is 'industry'? These are probably small facilities each producing only a small amount of pollution. This is like the idols case. Application of policies like taxes or standards are not likely to be enforceable. This is also true of fishing regulations. Other targets are required. Taxing inputs used by the polluting industries, or subsidizing the purchase of equipment or inputs that reduce emissions is probably better. For the fishery, buying boats or otherwise reducing the number of people employed is probably more practical than other regulatory approaches. However, this may leave the poor workers without a job. Training programs and the like to help people move out of the fishery into better paying jobs may be more effective.