The idea of managing the environment, and by extension, mitigating the effects of global climate change is both helped and hurt by the market. The economic impacts of climate change are already being felt. Certain crops that once flourished in one area are no longer able to be cultivated in such abundance. In this case, those individuals and economies that relied on that part to sustain the overall system have been severely impacted. The health of the markets are at stake due to climate change, and as a result the health and sustainability of the current central governments. In the example cited in the chapter when the progressives in environmental regulation in the EU lobbied for more involvement in environmental protection. In this example, there was often cited the idea of “environmental capital”, a component of the overall marketplace. In this example, there is direct impacts on the market, a central neoliberal ideal. In the US a recent report indicated that the economy could be stunted by direct impacts of climate change in the billions-of-dollars range. Governments tend to be motivated by preventing downturns in the market, and if climate change will be the vehicle to make markets suffer, this can be a new motivation for members of neoliberal governments to start becoming more involved in the intervention of behaviors that exacerbate climate change.
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