“Can Selfishness Save the Environment”
             Economists and Biologists have come to realize that people are really only motivated by self-interest. For economists this means economic incentives, and for biologists it means the pursuit of short-term goals that were once the means to reproduction. The two professions generally believe that people are not willing to pay for the long-term good of society or mother earth. For example in business, the selling of products that use CFC’s may be economically fruitful in the short-run, but over a long period of time technology shows there are better, more environmentally friendly chemicals that run the product more efficiently and also cost less. One would think that people would have the capability to realize that they are the on path to self destruction, but then again that is how man has gotten himself into this mess, ignorance. Man has come to believe that, “the world wasn’t made to produce frogs or katydids or sharks or grasshoppers. It was made to produ!
             ce man” (Quinn 102). He has no regard for nature and his surroundings, his only objective is to, “exterminate his competitors” for a profit (127). In the essay by Matt Ridley and Bobbi S. Low, “Can Selfishness Save the Environment,” exposes the idea that in society today that the only way to a man’s heart is through his wallet. Since people are motivated by selfish interests, in order to save the environment we will have to come up with ways to reward those who are environmentally conscious and punish those who are not.
             Ridley and Low point out that, “people and animals will cooperate only if they as individuals are given reasons to do so” (Ridley 2). This idea can be seen throughout the world in all aspects of life. For humans it has come down to the almighty dollar, and nature is unfortunately the one that has to pay the price of consumer wants. The ...