Blog
Externalities Cartoon
22nd January 2012
KAL, The Economist’s cartoonist, has produced an excellent cartoon in the latest issue perfect for a discussion of a very topical externalities issue in North America. And one that has also been ‘causing tremors’ in the news over here too!
‘Fracking’- a controversial process required to extract shale gas, has come under the spotlight in the United States once again- and KAL’s cartoon, available here, would provide an excellent lesson starter or way to prompt discussion of one example of externalities in action.
The world is certainly still demanding cheap energy sources, and they have many benefits to the economy. But there’s still significant external costs from this process, many of which are hotly debated- with environmentalists and the oil companies disagreeing about the extent of these risks. Again, this would be useful for evaluating the ability to define external costs.
If you want some more information to aid debate on this topic, here’s two useful links:
1. Economist article from November last year about the possibility of the shale gas industry growing in Europe
2. BBC News video and article explaining exactly what fracking is all about, and discussing what makes it controversial