We also measured environmental attitudes, and perceived controllability of hazards. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, New Orleans. Also in progress Time discounting for environmental expenditures and resources Most environmental issues involve long time frames, either for creating pollution or resource depletion problem or for taking action to correct it. Restoring a natural resource or cleaning up pollution is also a lengthy process. In general, things now are worth more than things later.
Economists debate the discount rate that is appropriate for environmental expenditures.
There are also important ethical issues involved time discounting for environmental issues. Future generations of humans stand to benefit or suffer depending on what we do about environmental issues in the present . Most of the non-human life on earth depends on the actions that humans take now with respect to environmental issues. But those of us living now will not benefit directly from actions to reduce emission of greenhouse gases, preserve old growth forests, prevent depletion of fish stocks by commercial fishing, etc. Our study examines how people equate environmental benefits in the future with environmental benefits obtained now.