Is pollution a civic value\?

Question

Is pollution a civic value\?

Answer 1

Not sure exactly what you mean, but pollution is often the embodiment of externalities in an economic sense.

For example, if I can harness the river to profit from hydro-power generation, but I don't pay the cost in pollution or ruined fisheries or whatever, then the pollution is an external cost.

It does have real costs to clean up, and hence there is a value to it, although it may or may not be negative value.

How can it be positive?

There is a lake in Northern CA, which was overrun by non-native fishes that were killing all the native ones, and hurting the hunting/fishing tourism that drives the local economy. Can't think of the name of the lake right now.

After much debate, the decision was made to poison the lake to kill ALL of the fish before the predators got to downstream lakes.

It will take a while for the polluted lake to regenerate itself, and for native fish stocks to be replenished, but it will happen.

It could be said economically that the now poisoned lake is more valuable economically then it was before it was poisoned. this is because the Expected Future Value of all elements of the local economy are higher then they were before. People will come back to visit in a predictable time frame now, and the other lakes and their economies will not be destroyed.

That is one example anyway.

Hope that helps