What impact does market economy in Europe have on the environment?

Answer 1

The free market economy in Europe will have both positive and negative effects on the environment. Lets take a look at the positive effects- What does a country have to do? They have to use limited resources to meet their needs and wants. Well, market economy allows the people to decide what they need and want and use resources in that manner. Point is, resources come from the environment. All of them do at some stage. In Europe, like any other country, depletion of resources can be argued as using the environment in a negative fashion. Well the positive effects with using the environment exist. When some trees are cleared it creates a new environment for smaller animals. This happens due to the opening of grassy plains in places where trees existed. Other positive effects could include the fact that some businesses actually are based on planting trees. This lowers CO2 levels in the air. Some businesses are about innovation to help save the environment. That will obviously help the environment. Some scientists in the economy of Europe also study global warming. This list goes on and on. There are abundance of more positive impacts but those are a few to name. Now, the negative effects- Of course we have companies in Europe that cut trees. Others that increase CO2 into the air. Ones that dump waste and hurt the environment. People who waste products that add to landfills that adds to pollution. You can also make this a unstopping list.

So, lets cut this short. The market in Europe is going to have positive and negative effects on the environment. The traditional thinking of a market only destroys environment is wrong. Lets face it, some people in our economy help the environment in Europe while others don't. The impact is simply a weird twist of positive and negative effects that will ruin and strengthen the environment.(Note: most people would say that the economy is doing more negative things then positive things in Europe but this is true almost all around the world. Most economies do more negative impact on environment then positive for the sake of needs and wants)

~Aditya Rengaswamy