A Survey of Ecological Economics

by Krishnan, Rajaram; Harris, Jonathan M.; Goodwin, Neva R.

• ISBN13: 9781559634113
• ISBN10: 1559634111
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-09-01
• Publisher: Island Pr

Summary

The emergent discipline of ecological economics is based on the idea that the world's economies are a function of the earth's ecosystems - an idea that radically reverses the world view of neoclassical economics. A Survey of Ecological Economics provides the first overview of this new field, and a comprehensive and systematic survey of its critical literature.The editors of the volume summarize ninety-five seminal articles, selected through an exhaustive survey, that advance the field of ecological economics and represent the best thinking to date in the area. Each two-to three-page summary is far more comprehensive than a typical abstract, and presents both the topics covered in each paper and the most important arguments made about each topic. Sections cover: historical perspective definition, scope, and interdisciplinary issues theoretical frameworks and techniques energy and resource flow analysis accounting and evaluation North-South/international issues ethical/social/institutional issues Each section is preceded by an introductory essay that outlines the current state of knowledge in the field and proposes a research agenda for the future.

Table of Contents

Authors of Original Articles
Series Introduction
Preface
Note to the Reader
Historical Roots for Ecological Economics - Biophysical Versus Allocative Approaches	p. 6
The Teleological View of Wealth: A Historical Perspective	p. 10
The Convergence of Neo-Ricardian and Embodied Energy Theories of Value and Price	p. 15
Energy and Energetics in Economic Theory: A Review Essay	p. 18
Introduction to Ecological Economics: Energy, Environment and Society	p. 21
The History of the Future	p. 25
Biophysical and Marxist Economics: Learning from Each Other	p. 27
Biophysical Economics: Historical Perspective and Current Research Trends	p. 29
World Environmental History and Economic Development	p. 33
The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis	p. 36
The Case That the World Has Reached Limits	p. 40
One Part Wisdom: The Great Debate	p. 43
Environmental Significance of Development Theory	p. 46
Toward an Ecological Economics	p. 55
Foundations of an Ecological Economics	p. 58
The Case for Methodological Pluralism	p. 62
Economics and Ecology: A Comparison of Experimental Methodologies and Philosophies	p. 66
Interdisciplinary Research Between Economists and Physical Scientists: Retrospect and Prospect	p. 70
Rethinking Ecological and Economic Education: A Gestalt Shift	p. 73
Industrial Ecology: Reflections on a Colloquium	p. 77
Sustainable Development: A Co-Evolutionary View	p. 80
Sustainable Development: A Critical Review	p. 83
Recovering the Real Meaning of Sustainability	p. 86
The Difficulty in Defining Sustainability	p. 88
Sustainable Development: What Is to Be Done?	p. 91
The Concept of Sustainability: Origins, Extensions, and Usefulness for Policy	p. 93
On the Ideological Foundations of Environmental Policy	p. 106
Towards an Ecological Economics of Sustainability	p. 108
Alternative Approaches to Economic-Environmental Interactions	p. 112
Introduction to the Steady-State Economy	p. 116
Allocation, Distribution, and Scale: Towards an Economics That Is Efficient, Just, and Sustainable	p. 121
The Economic Growth Debate: What Some Economists Have Learned but Many Have Not	p. 125
The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth	p. 129
Steady-State Economies and the Command Economy	p. 131
Allocation, Distribution, and Scale as Determinants of Environmental Degradation: Case Studies of Haiti, El Salvador, and Costa Rica	p. 135
On Economics as a Life Science	p. 138
The Entropy Law and the Economic Process in Retrospect	p. 140
Thermodynamic and Economic Concepts as Related to Resource-Use Policies	p. 142
Thermodynamic and Economic Concepts as Related to Resource-Use Policies: Comment and Reply	p. 146
Economics, Ethics, and the Environment	p. 149
Neoclassical and Institutional Approaches to Development and the Environment	p. 152
Economics as Mechanics and the Demise of Biological Diversity	p. 155
Reserved Rationality and the Precautionary Principle: Technological Change, Time, and Uncertainty in Environmental Decision Making	p. 158
Conservation Reconsidered	p. 162
The Human Firm in the Natural Environment: A Socio-Economic Analysis of Its Behavior	p. 165
The Entropy Law and the Economic Problem	p. 177
Selections from "Energy and Economic Myths"	p. 180
Consumption, Production, and Technological Progress: A Unified Entropic Approach	p. 183
Is the Entropy Law Relevant to the Economics of Natural Resource Scarcity?	p. 186
Is the Entropy Law Relevant to the Economics of Natural Resource Scarcity?: Comment	p. 190
Is the Entropy Law Relevant to the Economics of Natural Resource Scarcity? - Yes, of Course It Is!	p. 191
Recycling, Thermodynamics, and Environmental Thrift	p. 194
Thermodynamics and Economics	p. 197
Energy Costs: A Review of Methods	p. 201
Energy and Money	p. 204
Embodied Energy and Economic Valuation	p. 206
Energy and the U.S. Economy: A Biophysical Perspective	p. 211
Natural Resource Scarcity and Economic Growth Revisited: Economic and Biophysical Perspectives	p. 214
The Biophysical Systems World View	p. 219
Energy, Labor, and the Conserver Society	p. 222
Industrial Metabolism	p. 225
Industrial Input-Output Analysis: Implications for Industrial Ecology	p. 227
Implementing Industrial Ecology	p. 229
Environmental and Resource Accounting: An Overview	p. 240
Three Dilemmas of Environmental Accounting	p. 243
Correcting National Income for Environmental Losses: A Practical Solution for a Theoretical Dilemma	p. 246
GNP and Market Prices: Wrong Signals for Sustainable Economic Success That Mask Environmental Destruction	p. 250
A Survey of Resource and Environmental Accounting in Industrialized Countries	p. 252
Toward an Exact Human Ecology	p. 256
Energy Analysis and Economic Valuation	p. 259
Integrated Environmental-Economic Accounting, Natural Resource Accounts, and Natural Resource Management in Africa	p. 262
Development, the Environment, and the Social Rate of Discount	p. 266
Economic Indicators of Resource Scarcity: A Critical Essay	p. 271
Valuing Environmental Damage	p. 273
Some Problems with Environmental Economics	p. 276
The Worth of a Songbird: Ecological Economics as a Post-Normal Science	p. 280
Ten Reasons Why Northern Income Growth Is Not the Solution to Southern Poverty	p. 295
International Assistance: A Problem Posing as a Solution	p. 299
The Case for Free Trade	p. 302
The Perils of Free Trade	p. 304
Trading Off the Future: Making World Trade Environmentally Sustainable	p. 306
Development, Poverty, and the Growth of the Green Movement in India	p. 311
Third World Development and Population	p. 314
Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique	p. 317
Environmental Change and Violent Conflict	p. 320
Introduction - Global Commons: Site of Peril, Source of Hope	p. 323
Intergenerational Justice as Opportunity	p. 335
Introduction: The Ethics of Sustainable Development	p. 339
The Age of Plenty: A Christian View	p. 343
The Search for an Environmental Ethic	p. 344
Should Trees Have Standing? - Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects	p. 347
Legal Rights for Nature: The Wrong Answer to the Right(s) Question	p. 351
Intergenerational Justice in Energy Policy	p. 353
Sustainable Rural Development in Latin America: Building from the Bottom Up	p. 356
Global Institutions and Ecological Crisis	p. 360
Subject Index	p. 365
Name Index	p. 381
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