But What About The Walruses?

            For years, scientists have been concerned about the effects of greenhouse gas emission. By trapping heat and preventing it from dispersing into outer space (the greenhouse effect), global warming is considered to be the most concerning effect of these emissions. A recent focus has been placed on encouraging human activity that decreases emission of these gases, such as turning lights off when not in the room and reusing goods whenever possible. This article examines a negative externality of greenhouse gas emission that is imposed on walruses of the Arctic: 

            “Scientists blame a combination of natural fluctuations and climate change caused by human emission of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, for the recent record lows in sea ice… The melting sea ice raises a host of questions about the walrus, according to Jay. Will it affect the calves' survival? Are they spending more energy to swim further offshore to feed? Is the availability of their prey changing?”

            Although sea ice typically retreats north in the summer, the edge usually remains over the continental shelf where the water is shallow enough for walruses to feed. In the last 5 years, however, the sea ice has retreated farther north, over deeper waters where the walruses are unable to feed as easily. Thus, production of consumption goods, via emission of greenhouse gases, imposes negative production externalities on the walruses. The resulting decrease in sea ice has placed a burden on the walruses in several ways. As previously mentioned, acquiring food in deeper waters is more difficult for the walruses, causing them to expend more energy. This difficulty has caused record numbers of walruses to migrate to the coast, which presents another issue. Where as walruses historically spread out into smaller groups surrounding the Alaskan coast, they now congregate in large groups. This can present a problem if the walruses are startled, however, because it can lead to problems with lethal stampedes. These are all negative production externalities because they are costs due to the production of greenhouse gases that are borne by a party different from the producers greenhouse gases. Thus, these costs are not taken into account in the decision of the producers to produce.

One way of compensating for this market failure that we learned about in class is government regulation. Rather than government regulation of production that emits these gases, however, the article notes that some costal communities are trying to reduce the effects of this negative externality by implementing flight restrictions to keep planes from getting too close and startling the walruses. Unlike the examples of government regulation in class, this solution does not impose restrictions on the actual production goods requiring emission of greenhouse gases, and thus does not fully compensate for all effects on the walruses. In order to fully internalize the negative externality, government regulations or taxes should be placed on the actual emission of these gases, such that ozone depletion will occur at a slower rate than ozone creation and former environmental conditions can be restored.