Why Is Pollution and Environmental Issues So Hard to Deal With? |
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Pollution is hard to deal with because no one owns the air or water. Therefore, it is difficult to establish any kind of accountability for the polluting of these resources.
Things are different on a smaller scale. For example, if a building deteriorates, the owner of that building should legally have to pay for the repairs; anybody who rents knows that. It is therefore much more complicated in the case of air and water since it has no owner. Ultimately no one and everyone is responsible. It is very difficult to find whom to blame.
 No one owns the air and water There are some situations where companies actually own environmental territories. Paper companies, for example, used to possess forests. However, this kind of possession is for the most part avoided, as the owners can be easily blamed if contamination leaks from their territory. The same thing occurs with skiing companies. When owning mountains, companies need to pay a high insurance price to protect themselves from being sued by injured skiers.
This is why governments should become strongly involved with environmental issues, as the free market will not fix the pollution problem alone.
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Pollution Impacts on the Economy 
