Listening audioscript

 
 
Speaking Exercise 1 
 
Number 1, Page 303 [ mp3 132]
Listen to the lecture and take notes in the space provided for you below. 
(Professor)
Two different approaches a government can take toward reducing 
pollution are: setting limits on how much of a specific pollutant, uh…like 
smoke or chemical waste, a company, a factory, or a machine is allowed 
to emit into the air or water. Or the government can charge a company 
for the amount of a pollutant it emits—essentially taxing the company. As 
for the first approach, limiting a pollutant allows a government to ensure 
that a pollutant is not emitted above a safe level according to a standard 
that the government can determine based on studies. This means that 
the government has direct control over the final amount of a pollutant that 
gets into the atmosphere. However, this is also a disadvantage because, 
once the limit is set, there’s no motivation for a company to invest in 
anything that could reduce the pollutant below the established amount. 
So, even if new techniques or technology come along that could reduce 
a pollutant even more, companies won’t be likely to invest in them, but 
instead will keep emitting as much of a pollutant as they are legally 
permitted to. Now, one of the biggest advantages the other approach, a 
tax on a pollutant, has over setting limits is that there’s a reward for 
reducing the pollutant beyond the established limit. What I mean is that a 
company is rewarded for every reduction in the amount of the pollutant 
by paying less tax. And the closer it gets to zero emissions of a pollutant, 
the closer it gets to paying no tax at all. On the other hand, with a tax, the 
government does not have direct control over the amount of a pollutant 
emitted. If the tax is cheaper than the cost of reducing a pollutant, 
companies might simply choose to pay the tax and continue polluting. If 
the tax is too high, it might force the companies out of business instead 
of getting them to reduce pollutants. So, you see it’s quite difficult to 
establish limits or determine the amount of tax that will ultimately get the 
results the government wants.