CIAO DATE: 7/04

Tackling the Critical Conundrum
How Do Business, Government and Media Balance Economic Growth and a Healthy Environment?

Abstract

Many discussions about the environment become, at some point and to some extent, a discussion about economics – how much environmental protection or restoration will cost, how such costs will affect a company’s or a country᾿s growth, how to weigh the costs against the benefits. Elected officials and the news media also have to consider, explicitly or implicitly, how to deal with and explain real or apparent conflicts between the environment and the economy.

To explore these issues from a variety of perspectives, the Aspen Institute invited a small group of business, financial, government, news media, and environmental leaders to an Environment and Economics Forum in January 2004 to discuss how these organizations tackle the sometimes competing values of economic growth and a healthy environment.

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