10.2190/7TC7-PPJF-RC6W-YFQQ 7TC7PPJFRC6WYFQQ 4 Benefit Cost Analysis-A Necessary Part of Environmental Decisioning 291 297 20020509 20020509 20020509 20020509 7TC7PPJFRC6WYFQQ.pdf http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=7TC7PPJFRC6WYFQQ 4 Jerrold M. Peterson University of Minnesota, Duluth, Minnesota Society may use benefit cost analysis to set priorities in determining the level of environmental pollution they wish to tolerate. The benefits of pollution are derived from the production and consumption of goods and services necessary to life. The estimated social costs of this productive activity are the costs necessary to reduce or eliminate the wastes from the effluents discharged into the environment. Therefore, BCA is appropriate in environmental decisioning since its proper use ensures that society can reach the ecological stability level without violating the economic optimum. However, ecological stability may not always be a rational choice, particularly when dealing with ecological sub regions rather than the global ecosphere. F. G. Müller, Benefit Cost Analysis: A Questionable Part of Environmental Decisioning, <i>J. Environmental Systems, 4</i>:4, Winter, 1974. B. D. Collier, G. W. Cox, A. W. Johnson, and P. C. Miller, Dynamic Ecology, Prentice Hall, 1973. E. P. Odun, The Strategy of Ecosystem Development, <i>Science, 166</i>, p. 262, April 1969. A Blueprint for Survival, <i>The Ecologist, 2</i>:1, January 1972. S. Brubaker, To Live on Earth, John Hopkins University Press, 1972.