ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses case studies on the relationship of environmental economics with the chemistry of environmental science and contemporary environmental issues. Environmental problems have the following characteristics: wide area and long term, cause-and-effect complexity, uncertainty of reasons and results, victims and perpetrators are unspecified, and stakeholder relationship is not clear. Even if a social disaster is caused by environment that has been destroyed by pollution, it is important to seek the economic rationality of the socio-economic activities related to it. Ashio copper mine mineral pollution incident is a pollution incident of the Ashio copper mine of Japan, which originated from the early Meiji period of the late 19th century in the Watarase River area of Tochigi and Gunma Prefectures. Minamata disease was an occupational disease that broke out in the city of Minamata city in the Kumamoto Prefecture in 1956.
