Economics on the environment - Essay Example

Presidential Debate on Energy and Environment The second presidential debate between Mitt Romney, and Barrack Obama, focused on the environment and energy. The debate saw a heated argument on who has a better policy concerning these issues. This paper analyzes the debate, and the arguments on energy and environment in relation to opportunity cost. Opportunity cost refers to the price of any good or service measured in relation to the price of the next best alternative that is not preferred. During the debate, the President was of the opinion that the state needs to invest heavily on wind, solar, energy sufficient cars and biofuels.

This will make the state to have sufficient energy for a long period of time. The president was against investing only on natural gas and oil, as this will make the country to depend heavily to other states for their energy supplies. Analyzing this argument, there are two alternatives, one is to invest only on natural gas, and oil. The other alternative is to invest on oil and gas, and other alternative sources of energy. To the president, the best alternative is to invest on oil, gas, solar, wind and biofuels, as this will make the country energy sufficient.

The President also argued that doing this, will create an approximately create 600,000 new jobs, and it is a better alternative than to rely on natural gas, and oil. The President accused Governor Romney of threatening to shut down a coal plant in Massachusetts. The coal plant wanted an extension on the requirements that companies reduce carbon emissions. The governor was of the opinion that the plant was killing people due to its carbon emissions. In analyzing this issue, two choices present themselves, one is to grant an extension to the company resulting to more emissions, or to close the company for the purposes of preventing this emissions.

To Romney, it was better to close the company, as this will save the lives of people, as opposed to granting an extension to the company, which would mean saving jobs, but polluting the environment resulting to death. The Governor further accused the President of preventing an increase in oil drills by cutting half of the drilling on Federal lands. Romney accused the President of prosecuting people drilling oil in the Bakken Range of North Dakota, for the purposes of saving birds. This case occurred in 2011, when the department of wildlife and fisheries sued seven oil drilling companies for drilling oil in the Bakken oil shale, resulting to the death of 29 birds.

In analyzing this point, there were two choices for the President. The first choice is to allow the drilling of oil, and satisfy the American energy needs. The second choice is to stop the drilling and prosecute the offenders for purposes of protecting the environment. To the President the best alternative was to stop the drilling, and protect the environment from contamination. To the president, the cost of polluting the environment is higher, than the cost of drilling oil, thus the action to stop the companies from oil drilling.

Works Cited disrespect, nddrvn5: "The Presidential Debate Live Streaming Online (VIDEO)." Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. Huff Post: Politics, 16 Oct. 2012. Web. 17 Oct. 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/watch-the-presidential-debate-live-_n_1971154.html Bottom of Form