An Introduction to Ecological Economics PDF Download

Author: Robert Costanza
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1420012673
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

View

Book Description
From Empty-World Economics to Full-World EconomicsEcological economics explores new ways of thinking about how we manage our lives and our planet to achieve a sustainable, equitable, and prosperous future. Ecological economics extends and integrates the study and management of both "nature's household" and "humankind's household"-An Introduction to

Author: Herman E. Daly
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597269913
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 541

View

Book Description
In its first edition, this book helped to define the emerging field of ecological economics. This new edition surveys the field today. It incorporates all of the latest research findings and grounds economic inquiry in a more robust understanding of human needs and behavior. Humans and ecological systems, it argues, are inextricably bound together in complex and long-misunderstood ways. According to ecological economists, conventional economics does not reflect adequately the value of essential factors like clean air and water, species diversity, and social and generational equity. By excluding biophysical and social systems from their analyses, many conventional economists have overlooked problems of the increasing scale of human impacts and the inequitable distribution of resources. This introductory-level textbook is designed specifically to address this significant flaw in economic thought. The book describes a relatively new “transdiscipline” that incorporates insights from the biological, physical, and social sciences. It provides students with a foundation in traditional neoclassical economic thought, but places that foundation within an interdisciplinary framework that embraces the linkages among economic growth, environmental degradation, and social inequity. In doing so, it presents a revolutionary way of viewing the world. The second edition of Ecological Economics provides a clear, readable, and easy-to-understand overview of a field of study that continues to grow in importance. It remains the only stand-alone textbook that offers a complete explanation of theory and practice in the discipline.

Author: Michael Common
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781139445436
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 600

View

Book Description
Taking as its starting point the interdependence of the economy and the natural environment, this book provides a comprehensive introduction to the emerging field of ecological economics. The authors, who have written extensively on the economics of sustainability, build on insights from both mainstream economics and ecological sciences. Part I explores the interdependence of the modern economy and its environment, while Part II focuses mainly on the economy and on economics. Part III looks at how national governments set policy targets and the instruments used to pursue those targets. Part IV examines international trade and institutions, and two major global threats to sustainability - climate change and biodiversity loss. Assuming no prior knowledge of economics, this textbook is well suited for use on interdisciplinary environmental science and management courses. It has extensive student-friendly features including discussion questions and exercises, keyword highlighting, real-world illustrations, further reading and website addresses.

Author: Peter A. Victor
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1785367382
Category : Economic development
Languages : en
Pages : 376

View

Book Description
Ten years after the publication of the first edition of this influential book, the evidence is even stronger that human economies are overwhelming the regenerative capacity of the planet. This book explains why long-term economic growth is infeasible, and why, especially in advanced economies, it is also undesirable. Simulations based on real data show that managing without growth is a better alternative

Author: Donald Worster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521468343
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

View

Book Description
Nature's Economy is a wide-ranging investigation of ecology's past, first published in 1994.

Author: Peter G. Brown
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231540426
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 408

View

Book Description
Ecological Economics for the Anthropocene provides an urgently needed alternative to the long-dominant neoclassical economic paradigm of the free market, which has focused myopically—even fatally—on the boundless production and consumption of goods and services without heed to environmental consequences. The emerging paradigm for ecological economics championed in this new book recenters the field of economics on the fact of the Earth's limitations, requiring a total reconfiguration of the goals of the economy, how we understand the fundamentals of human prosperity, and, ultimately, how we assess humanity's place in the community of beings. Each essay in this volume contributes to an emerging, revolutionary agenda based on the tenets of ecological economics and advances new conceptions of justice, liberty, and the meaning of an ethical life in the era of the Anthropocene. Essays highlight the need to create alternative signals to balance one-dimensional market-price measurements in judging the relationships between the economy and the Earth's life-support systems. In a lively exchange, the authors question whether such ideas as "ecosystem health" and the environmental data that support them are robust enough to inform policy. Essays explain what a taking-it-slow or no-growth approach to economics looks like and explore how to generate the cultural and political will to implement this agenda. This collection represents one of the most sophisticated and realistic strategies for neutralizing the threat of our current economic order, envisioning an Earth-embedded society committed to the commonwealth of life and the security and true prosperity of human society.

Author: Herman E. Daly
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1847206948
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 281

View

Book Description
This clear-thinking collection brings together 25 of Daly s essays, speeches, reviews and testimonials from the past decade. . . as a whole they provide a useful masterclass on the principles of ecological economics. Daly s vision, as well as his frustration with mainstream economists refusal to engage with his arguments, comes through loud and clear. New Scientist It s hard to imagine ecological economics without the numerous and profound contributions of Herman Daly. These papers reveal the consistency of his analysis and clarity of exposition that have made him one of the most influential economists of his generation. Because of Herman Daly we have a much better understanding of how economies relate to the environment, why so much is wrong with this relationship and what must be done to fix it. Peter Victor, York University, Canada This thrilling compilation outlines the origins of the young discipline of ecological economics by the intellectual leader of the movement, Herman Daly. He recounts how, as a member of the recently demoted environment department at the World Bank, he integrated ecology with economics during his six years in the bowels of the beast. Herman lucidly and compellingly combines common sense with profound understanding of both economics and ecology to arrive at sustainable solutions to the global problematique. Herman s rigorous yet compassionate solutions to climate change, peak oil, globalization vs. internationalization, poverty reduction, and the unsung concept of scale leading to uneconomic growth, are precisely what we need to prevent the current liquidation of our beautiful world. This book will galvanize you into the action we need so much. Robert Goodland, Environmental adviser, World Bank Group, 1978 2001 In this book, written in crystal clear style, Herman Daly reiterates the main points of his analysis and vision, he praises some teachers (John Ruskin, Frederick Soddy, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Kenneth Boulding), he fearlessly attacks some adversaries in the World Bank and MIT, and he offers some advice to the government of his own country, to the Russian Duma, and especially to OPEC that, if followed, would change the world very much for the better. Finally, on a different line of thought, he interrogates conservation biologists on their reasons for wanting to keep biodiversity since, as biologists, they claim that evolution has no particular purpose. Why not let the Sixth Great Extinction run its course? In other words, science cannot provide an ethics of conservation, which Herman Daly finds in religion more than in democratization deliberations. Joan Martinez-Alier, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, Spain Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development comprises a carefully chosen selection of some 25 articles, speeches, congressional testimonies, reviews, and critiques from the last ten years of Herman Daly s ever-illuminating work. This book seeks to identify the blind spots and errors in standard growth economics, alongside the corrections that ecological economics offers to better guide us toward a sustainable economy one with deeper biophysical and ethical roots. Under the general heading of sustainability and ecological economics, many specific topics are here brought into relation with each other. These include: limits to growth; full-world versus empty-world economics; uneconomic growth; definitions of sustainability; peak oil; steady-state economics; allocation versus distribution versus scale issues; non-enclosure of rival goods and enclosure of non-rival goods; production functions and the laws of thermodynamics; OPEC and Kyoto; involuntary resettlement and development; resource versus value-added taxation; globalization versus internationalization; immigration; climate change; and the philosophical presuppositions of policy, including the policies suggested in connection with the topics above. This fascinating work will appeal to scholars and academics of ecol

Author: Robert Costanza
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231513240
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 543

View

Book Description
Ecological economics is a new transdisciplinary approach to understanding and managing the ecology and economics of our world for sustainability on local, regional, and global scales. The previous isolation of these two fields has led to economic and environmental policies that have been mutually destructive rather than reinforcing in the long term. This book brings together these two disciplines in chapters covering the basic worldview of ecological economics; accounting, modeling, and analysis of ecological economicl systems; and necessary institutional changes and case studies.

Author: Herman E. Daly
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807047066
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 265

View

Book Description
"Daly is turning economics inside out by putting the earth and its diminishing natural resources at the center of the field . . . a kind of reverse Copernican revolution in economics." --Utne Reader "Considered by most to be the dean of ecological economics, Herman E. Daly elegantly topples many shibboleths in Beyond Growth. Daly challenges the conventional notion that growth is always good, and he bucks environmentalist orthodoxy, arguing that the current focus on 'sustainable development' is misguided and that the phrase itself has become meaningless." --Mother Jones "In Beyond Growth, . . . [Daly] derides the concept of 'sustainable growth' as an oxymoron. . . . Calling Mr. Daly 'an unsung hero,' Robert Goodland, the World Bank's top environmental adviser, says, 'He has been a voice crying in the wilderness.'" --G. Pascal Zachary, The Wall Street Journal "A new book by that most far-seeing and heretical of economists, Herman Daly. For 25 years now, Daly has been thinking through a new economics that accounts for the wealth of nature, the value of community and the necessity for morality." --Donella H. Meadows, Los Angeles Times "For clarity of vision and ecological wisdom Herman Daly has no peer among contemporary economists. . . . Beyond Growth is essential reading." --David W. Orr, Oberlin College "There is no more basic ethical question than the one Herman Daly is asking." --Hal Kahn, The San Jose Mercury News "Daly's critiques of economic orthodoxy . . . deliver a powerful and much-needed jolt to conventional thinking." --Karen Pennar, Business Week Named one of a hundred "visionaries who could change your life" by the Utne Reader,Herman Daly is the recipient of many awards, including a Grawemeyer Award, the Heineken Prize for environmental science, and the "Alternative Nobel Prize," the Right Livelihood Award. He is professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs, and coauthor with John Cobb, Jr., of For the Common Good.

Author: Andre F. Clewell
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610910648
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

View

Book Description
The field of ecological restoration is a rapidly growing discipline that encompasses a wide range of activities and brings together practitioners and theoreticians from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, ranging from volunteer backyard restorationists to highly trained academic scientists and professional consultants. Ecological Restoration offers for the first time a unified vision of ecological restoration as a field of study, one that clearly states the discipline’s precepts and emphasizes issues of importance to those involved at all levels. In a lively, personal fashion, the authors discuss scientific and practical aspects of the field as well as the human needs and values that motivate practitioners. The book: -identifies fundamental concepts upon which restoration is based -considers the principles of restoration practice -explores the diverse values that are fulfilled with the restoration of ecosystems -reviews the structure of restoration practice, including the various contexts for restoration work, the professional development of its practitioners, and the relationships of restoration with allied fields and activities A unique feature of the book is the inclusion of eight “virtual field trips,” short photo essays of project sites around the world that illustrate various points made in the book and are “led” by those who were intimately involved with the project described. Throughout, ecological restoration is conceived as a holistic endeavor, one that addresses issues of ecological degradation, biodiversity loss, and sustainability science simultaneously, and draws upon cultural resources and local skills and knowledge in restoration work.