ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on examining the concept of collective goods originally elaborated by economist Mancur Olson, which explains why it is difficult to get countries to cooperate in meeting environmental threats. It discusses vanishing forests and related processes of desertification, and growing populations all strain the world's water sources the final environmental challenge. An environmental threat to the earth as a whole is posed by gases released in burning fossil fuels that are responsible for heating the earth's atmosphere. The link between population and environment also received attention at the 1984 International Conference on Population in Mexico City, which urged countries to bring population and resources into balance. Environmental challenges are more global today than ever before. Like other environmental concerns, the question of energy, which follows, reflects the trade-off between ecology and economics. As fish prices rise, incentives increase to use destructive technology that destroys marine ecosystems, triggering efforts to impose drastic fishing quotas.
