 Hi, welcome to the 10th and the last video lecture. This is the second video lecture of the last module, namely, Environmental Development. And this module talks about the environment and growth trade-off, which is one of the central themes in economic development thinking in the present time. So what does Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations General Secretary, has to say? He says, the sustainable development is the pathway to the future we all want. We want for all. It offers a framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship, and strengthen governance. Now, the second quote is an extension of Larry Summers' quote that we discussed last time, where he says, the economic logic of dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable. Now, you may have noticed through going through the previous presentation that this logic comes from the benefit cost analysis that we discussed last time. So there is a case to be made, according to Summers, that the pure economic logic would lead to a system whereby all the toxic waste produced in the rich countries should be dumped on the poor countries. Now, whether we agree to such a process or not is obviously, you know, I think a non-question, but more on that as we proceed. So what are the various views on the subject? On the one hand, we have neo-malthusians, on the other hand, we have economists who are non-malthusians, and also finally, we have the Marxists. Now, how can we summarize these positions? So the neo-malthusians say that natural resources are finite, and therefore there are limits to growth, consumption, and prosperity. There's a self-correcting mechanism in the natural system whereby overpopulation and overextraction of the resources is checked by famines, disease, and war. Population growth takes place in a geometric progression while productivity grows in the earth. In the geometric progression, this will eventually lead to a food crisis, and population growth causes greater pressure on land, resulting in division of land into low productivity plots, leading to greater, to lower productivity. And finally, population contributes to environmental degradation. So this is the malthusian view also maintained by neo-malthusians. Basically the idea is that environment presents very critical breaks for the growth process and limitations to consumption and growth. The interesting thing here is that population is seen as a bane of all problems, and it's said that population grows geometrically and productivity grows in a geometric progression, and eventually there will be no food for all of us. And that is the traditional malthusian position on population and environment. The economists say, the neoclassical school would say that there are no limits to growth and consumption. Well-functioning institutions like market can provide incentives for innovation and substitution of resources, which can fuel progress in the long run. So there are no limits to growth. We can always keep innovating, we can always keep substituting and always keep increasing consumption. So market forces like prices create signals for scarcity and reduce and induce incentives for innovations and substitutions. So what is meant by this is that as something becomes scarce, the price mechanism is going to reflect that scarcity by raising the prices. And once you raise prices of something, the demand for that thing goes down. So the market has a self-correcting mechanism. In addition to that, when the prices of something goes up in well-functioning markets, it creates incentives for people to create substitutes of that, to do innovation, to reduce one's reliance on those expensive resources. And this process will make sure that environment is preserved. However, no limits to consumption and growth are imposed. Finally, the Marxists talk about, say that the real problem is the maldistribution of resources and wealth. Poverty and inequality is a cause and not the consequence of resource depletion and high rates of population growth. A rise in productivity is not adequate enough to meet the food demands of a growing population. Technical innovation was hindered by class conflicts and struggles on various social elites over distribution of wealth. So the basic point that the Marxians highlight is that the problem is not per se the production, the problem is the distribution. It's not that we have an absolute food shortage. It's that some people are systematically denied access to food. And poverty and inequality is the cause of resource depletion and high rates of population and not the effect. So it's not like poor people are irresponsible to the environment. It's like poverty and inequality create conditions for more resource depletion. So these are some of the broad views of different schools of thought on the environment. And the rest of this presentation will go in depth deeper into these and understand how these processes play out. Which of these schools has greater support from the evidence? Is there scope for meeting somewhere in the middle? And what does the evidence suggest? So I will end this brief lecture here. I will urge you to go through the entire power point and discuss and go through the discussion on the political economy and the growth environment trade off. And as always, if you have any questions, make sure you write to me and ask me. Thank you.