Director's Commentary

The Environmental Kuznets Curve: Director’s Commentary
Assigned Problem: The Problem assigned to us was to evaluate the Environmental Kuznets Curve and explain how it is supposed to work in the real world. Also we were supposed to explain why our hopes for future sustainability rely on this relationship working, and then we were supposed to present the pros and cons arguments of this curve.
In 1971 Simon Kuznet won the Nobel Prize in Economics for developing the Kuznets curve. This idea hypothesized that as a country begins to develop and its wealth begins to increase the economic inequality also increases until a certain average income is reached and economic inequality reaches a peak and then it begins to decrease as wealth continues increasing (Stern 1). Twenty years later in 1991 an article was published by Gene Grossman and Allan Krueger that applied the famous Kuznets Curve to the relationship between a nation’s GDP and its environmental quality (Levinson 1).
Rationale:
We wanted to begin the video with a real life situation in order to help people feel connected to this topic our video begins when a young man is beginning his working life. He starts off not having much money so he leaves all his trash lying around. As he begins to improve his economic status the trash quickly begins to build up until one day he has enough money to pay someone poorer than himself to take away the trash and put it in his yard. This is meant to illustrate the following history of our own country. The environmental Kuznets curve can be seen in the history of the United States, when we were a young nation and not very wealthy we were relatively free from pollution. As our country began to industrialize during the industrial revolution we began having problems with pollution in our cities and people stopped caring for the environment. During this period the economic status of America began to rise while the environmental conditions continued to degrade. This shows how the first part of the curve is true because this follows the relationship that Grossman and Krueger developed.
As the United States’ average income has continued to increase we have generally seen an increase in pollutants. However, some pollutants have begun to decrease giving rise to the hypothesis that the Environmental Kuznets Curve only holds true for certain pollutants but not for overall environmental quality. EPA data from 1990 shows 130,601,345 tons of pollutants from cars being emitted (EPA 1990), In 2002 the same survey showed 74,500,891 tons of pollutants being emitted from cars (EPA 2002). This is an approximate halving of the overall emissions from cars over a twelve year period. However, this mainly covers pollutants like carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide showing that this relationship may only be able to be applied to certain pollutants. This reduction in pollutants may be due to the advent of the Clean Air Act which, was implemented in 1990 and since then emissions have decreased. This shows that our regulatory agencies may provide the impetus for decreasing emissions in the United States.
Another factor in the decrease of emissions from the United States could be due to our exporting of industries to other countries where they lack the environmental laws that we have in the United States. This may actually be causing overall pollution levels in the world to rise despite our pollution levels decreasing and our environment appearing to improve. “Trade itself is likely to increase the impacts (of pollution) in developing countries and reduce them in the developed countries and this may be another explanation for the EKC relationship ”(He 7). This represents how we have been exporting our industries to countries that pollute more than if the industries remained in the United States, while we import natural resources from other countries that abuse the environment to harvest those resources while preserving the natural resources found within our borders.
Compare and Contrast:
1. The idea that capitalism consumes nature but produce goods is talked about in the book, and we also address it in the movie, we show how capitalism promotes the invention of new environmental technologies to improve our efficiencies and decrease our impact on nature (Hull 82). By reducing our consumptive needs capitalism begins to limit our environmental impact after we reach a certain income.
2. The book also raises the point of whether or not we can be sustainable while still developing (Hull 82). We showed that once a country develops beyond a certain economic point, they begin using sustainable economic practices but this point varies between countries. This means that more developed countries are more likely to be sustainable and less developed countries are less likely to be sustainable.
3. The book discusses how those countries that have already developed can help other countries that have yet to develop skip over the rise in pollution and go to the end of the curve (Hull 83-84). This would help us to lower the total world pollution rather than one country’s pollution decreasing as it becomes wealthier while other countries continue polluting and counterbalancing the decreases in pollutants from developed countries.
4. The book also talks about how the curve can be upset by the exporting of pollutants to other countries in the form of factories and garbage (Hull 83). We export many of our industries to other countries and our wastes so we cannot truly see the affect that we are having on the world’s environment just by measuring pollutants here in America. This importation and exportation of industries is talked about as being a factor that disrupts the curve and was shown in our skit when the man paid someone poorer to remove his trash and improve his own environment without actually making the whole environment better.
5. When people were moving out west and were following the idea of Manifest Destiny nature was an evil force to be conquered so people’s destruction of nature became a sign of progress (Hull 74-77). In the video we talked about how when people moved west they used up all the land for factories and harvesting of natural resources. People saw the natural resources as infinite and untouchable so they did not care if they were being destroyed.


Works Cited
Emissions by Category Chart - Criteria Air Pollutants. Chart. United States EPA. 1990. reqtype=viewmap>.

• We used this chart to compare to the chart from 2002 showing the decrease in certain emissions.

Emissions by Category Chart - Criteria Air Pollutants. Chart. United States EPA. 2002. .

• We used this chart to compare to the chart from 1990 showing the decrease in certain emissions.

He, Jie. Is the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis valid for developing countries? A survey. Diss. University of Sherbrooke. 2003. .

• We used this source to talk about how much of the reduction in pollution in developed countries is due to the exporting of industries to undeveloped countries.

Hull, Bruce R. Infinite Nature. Chicago: University Press of Chicago, 2006.

• We used this for general information on the Environmental Kuznets Curve and to find main points and arguments for our video. We also used it to compare and contrast in our paper.

Levinson, Arik. Environmental Kuznets curve. New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics 2nd ed.
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• This source was useful to determine the overall information about the Environmental Kuznets Curve and how it was first developed from the Kuznets Curve. It also proved helpful in finding main arguments for our video.

Stern, David I. The Environmental Kuznets Curve. Diss. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2003. Troy, NY. .

• This source was useful for researching the history of the original Kuznets Curve developed by Simon Kuznet.

Stern, David I. The Rise and Fall of the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Diss. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2004. Troy, NY.
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• This source was useful in showing the results of many different studies of the Environmental Kuznets Curve and what conclusions were drawn from these studies. It also showed the different criticisms of the curve and what arguments have been brought against it.