Introducing "Issues in Environmental Economics: Summer 2008"

Welcome to our new blog, titled Issues in Environmental Economics: Summer 2008. We are pleased to have the opportunity to share our thoughts and concerns regarding issues within the realm of environmental economics with you, the reader. The authors of this blog vary by posting, representing a diverse range of thoughts and opinions on issues that are of significant relevance to modern discussions regarding environmental issues and the economic theory or applications that surround these issues.

Although this blog will not be maintained on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis, the idea was to make public the work done by undergraduate students who completed the writing assignment for ECON 362-001, summer term 2008 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

As the course instructor, I wanted to provide students with the opportunity to present their views on a topic of their choice within the context of environmental economics. By providing a less formal writing assignment, my hopes were that students would feel less inclined to spend all of their time researching a topic, but also spend some time expressing their opinions on the issue at hand. Most importantly, I wanted students to support these views using sound economic theory.

Not every post will relate to a topic of the utmost importance – we’ll leave that to the professionals. Instead, each post has a unique structure and each author uses his/her experiences to generate discussion on a topic of their choice.

We hope that you, the reader, enjoy your time scanning through our entries. Hopefully we can spark further thought and discussion by sharing these entries, or at least make you think a bit differently about an environmental or natural resource issue. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll even make you laugh.

It is worthwhile to note that the views and opinions of the entries do not represent those of the course instructor or the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us using the information in our profile.

Thanks for visiting!