Environmental Economics
The purpose of the essay is to provide students with the opportunity to showcase their understanding of the environmental economics concepts, techniques and methodologies presented in the course. This essay is not intended as a research-oriented work. Instead, the essay should focus on the decision-making process, the incentives of the various interested parties, and how concepts such as externalities, equity, and efficiency play a role in the economic treatment of environmental issues. Students will be evaluated on the appropriate use of course and topic-specific terminology, the ability to frame arguments and analysis within the economic modeling structures studied in the course, and in their ability to present coherent, clear, balanced and creative arguments in support of their positions. Students are permitted to use graphical or numerical illustrations as a narrative tool for the purposes of demonstrating a particular motivation, or to elucidate a feature of a position or argument being proposed. The essay is required to be 1500-2000 words in length. https://www.ryerson.ca/arts/liberalstudies/faq/
What are the assignment requirements for Liberal Studies?
The Liberal Studies policy at Ryerson requires a significant writing component. Liberal Studies (LS) courses must conform to the following assignment structure:
includes one or more individually-written, out-of-class assignment(s) totaling in the range of at least 1200-1500 words at the lower level and of at least 1500-2000 words at the upper;
requires the student to carry out an analysis of the assignment’s subject, and make and justify an evaluative, comparative or explicatory judgment;
attaches a weight of 25-35% or higher to the contribution made the assignment(s) to the student’s final grade on the course;
provides commentary on the clarity of organization, logic, syntax, and grammar of student writing, and explicitly indicates that such attributes will form part of the basis upon which the assignment will be evaluated.
Essay Topic
If you decide to choose a topic other than one of those offered below, you should discuss it with me in advance.
1) The Yasuni Initiative: A Tragedy of the Commons (You may instead choose to discuss another example of the Tragedy of the Commons: see article #2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
https://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/ten-reallife-examples-of-the-tragedy-of-the-common.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasun%C3%AD-ITT_Initiativehttps://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2066313/is_this_the_end_of_yasuni_national_park.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-27303717