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Article: Government must play key role in environment; Costs: Free-market system can only do so much in efforts to reduce pollution
- Article from:
- Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque)
- Article date:
- March 30, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2003 Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque). Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Earth Day 2003 is just around the corner: April 22.
It's been 33 years since the first Earth Day celebration, and we
are making progress. Most of our progress is through government
involvement, and there are reasons for that.
One of the dilemmas of environmental economics is the extent to
which the free-market system can be relied upon to reduce pollution.
For instance, rather than relying on government regulations, use
of the market system could enable victims of pollution (in true
American fashion) to sue the violating firms forcing them to clean up
their act - so to speak.
Another example of the use of the market system is pollution
vouchers that enables firms to buy and sell pollution ...