The Degrowth Alternative
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Measuring Progress in the Degrowth Transition to a Steady State Economy
ECOLEC-03966; No of Pages 11 Ecological Economics xxx (2011) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon Measuring progress in the degrowth transition to a steady state economy Daniel W. O'Neill ⁎ Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, 5101 S. 11th Street, Arlington, VA 22204, USA article info abstract Article history: In order to determine whether degrowth is occurring, or how close national economies are to the concept of a Received 27 January 2011 steady state economy, clear indicators are required. Within this paper I analyse four indicator approaches that Received in revised form 16 April 2011 could be used: (1) Gross Domestic Product, (2) the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, (3) biophysical Accepted 27 May 2011 and social indicators, and (4) a composite indicator. I conclude that separate biophysical and social indicators Available online xxxx represent the best approach, but a unifying conceptual framework is required to choose appropriate indicators and interpret the relationships between them. I propose a framework based on ends and means, Keywords: Indicators and a set of biophysical and social indicators within this framework. The biophysical indicators are derived Degrowth from Herman Daly's definition of a steady state economy, and measure the major stocks and flows in the Steady state economy economy–environment system. The social indicators are based on the stated goals of the degrowth Conceptual framework movement, and measure the functioning of the socio-economic system, and how effectively it delivers well- being. -
The Real Leaders Guide to Understanding Sustainability
THE REAL LEADERS GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING SUSTAINABILITY Real-Leaders.com So, what is sustainability? Sustainability is the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. For humans, sustainability is the potential for long-term maintenance of well being, which has ecological, economic, political and cultural dimensions. Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival and flourishing of humans and other organisms. There are a number of major ways of reducing negative human impact. The first of these is environmental management that is based largely on information gained from earth science, environmental science and conservation biology. The second approach is management of human consumption of resources, which is based largely on information gained from economics. A third more recent approach adds cultural and political concerns into the sustainability matrix. Sustainability interfaces with economics through the social and environmental consequences of economic activity. The economics of sustainability involves ecological economics – where social aspects, including cultural, health-related and monetary/financial aspects are integrated. Moving towards sustainability is also a social challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles and ethical consumerism. Different ways of living more sustainably can take many forms, from reorganising living conditions (e.g., ecovillages, eco-municipalities and sustainable cities), reappraising economic sectors (permaculture, The Real Leaders Guide To Understanding Sustainability / Real-Leaders.com green building, sustainable agriculture), or work practices (sustainable architecture), using science to develop new technologies (green technologies, renewable energy and sustainable Fission and Fusion power), to adjustments in individual lifestyles that conserve natural resources. -
Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development, Selected Essays of Herman Daly ADVANCES in ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS Series Editor:Jeroen C.J.M
Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development, Selected Essays of Herman Daly ADVANCES IN ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS Series Editor:Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, ICREA Professor, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain and Professor of Environmental and Resource Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Founding Editor:Robert Costanza, Director, University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics and Professor, Center for Environmental and Estuarine Studies and Zoology Department, USA This important series makes a significant contribution to the development of the principles and practices of ecological economics, a field which has expanded dra- matically in recent years. The series provides an invaluable forum for the publica- tion of high quality work and shows how ecological economic analysis can make a contribution to understanding and resolving important problems. The main emphasis of the series is on the development and application of new original ideas in ecological economics. International in its approach, it includes some of the best theoretical and empirical work in the field with contributions to funda- mental principles, rigorous evaluations of existing concepts, historical surveys and future visions. It seeks to address some of the most important theoretical questions and gives policy solutions for the ecological problems confronting the global village as we move into the twenty-first century. Titles in the series include: Economic Growth, Material Flows and the Environment New Applications of Structural Decomposition Analysis and Physical Input–Output Tables Rutger Hoekstra Joint Production and Responsibility in Ecological Economics On the Foundations of Environmental Policy Stefan Baumgärtner, Malte Faber and Johannes Schiller Frontiers in Ecological Economic Theory and Application Edited by Jon D. -
Beyond Growth Herman E. Daly 1996
Beyond Growth The Economics of Sustainable Development Herman E. Daly 1996 1 CONTENTS Introduction. The Shape of Current Thought on Sustainable Development Part I. Economic Theory and Sustainable Development Introduction Chapter 1 Moving to a Steady-State Economy Chapter 2 Elements of Environmental Macroeconomics Chapter 3 Consumption: Value Added, Physical Transformation, and Welfare Part II. Operational Policy and Sustainable Development Introduction Chapter 4 Operationalizing Sustainable Development by Investing in Natural Capital Chapter 5 Fostering Environmentally Sustainable Development: Four Parting Suggestions for the World Bank Part III. National Accounts and Sustainable Development Introduction Chapter 6 Toward a Measure of Sustainable Net National Product Chapter 7 On Sustainable Development and National Accounts Part IV. Population and Sustainable Development Introduction Chapter 8 Carrying Capacity As a Tool of Development Policy: The Ecuadoran Amazon and the Paraguayan Chaco Chapter 9 Marx and Malthus in Northeast Brazil: A Note on the World's Largest Class Difference in Fertility and Its Recent Trends Part V. International Trade and Sustainable Development Introduction Chapter 10 Free Trade and Globalization Vs. Environment and Community Chapter 11 From Adjustment to Sustainable Development: The Obstacle of Free Trade Part VI. Two Pioneers in the Economics of Sustainable Development Introduction Chapter 12 The Economic Thought of Frederick Soddy Chapter 13 On Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's Contributions to Economics: An Obituary -
The Ecological Economics of Boulding's Spaceship Earth
Institut für Regional- und Umweltwirtschaft Institute for the Environment and Regional Development Clive L. Spash The Ecological Economics of Boulding's Spaceship Earth SRE-Discussion 2013/02 2013 The Ecological Economics of Boulding’s Spaceship Earth1 Clive L. Spash Abstract The work of Kenneth Boulding is sometimes cited as being foundational to the understanding of how the economy interacts with the environment and particularly of relevance to ecological economists. The main reference made in this regard is to his seminal essay using the metaphor of planet Earth as a spaceship. In this paper that essay and related work is placed both within historical context of the environmental movement and developments in the thought on environment-economy interactions. The writing by Boulding in this area is critically reviewed and discussed in relationship to the work of his contemporaries, also regarded as important for the ecological economics community, such as Georegescu-Roegen, Herman Daly and K. William Kapp. This brings out the facts that Boulding did not pursue his environmental concerns, wrote little on the subject, had a techno-optimist tendency, disagreed with his contemporaries and preferred to develop an evolutionary economics approach. Finally, a sketch is offered of how the ideas in the Spaceship Earth essay relate to current understanding within social ecological economics. The essay itself, while offering many thought provoking insights within the context of its time, also has flaws both of accuracy and omission. The issues of power, social justice, institutional and social relationships are ones absent, but also ones which Boulding, near the end of his life, finally recognised as key to addressing the growing environmental crises. -
Paul Burkett Entropy in Ecological Economics: a Marxist Intervention
HIMA 13,1_265_f6_117-152 3/14/05 2:50 PM Page 117 Paul Burkett Entropy in Ecological Economics: A Marxist Intervention Introduction One of the liveliest debates in ecological economics concerns the significance of the second law of thermodynamics, also known as the entropy law. This article critically surveys this debate and develops a Marxist perspective on the economy-entropy relationship. Entropy is a measure of the total disorder, randomness or chaos in a system: increased entropy implies greater disorder. The second law says that the entropy of an isolated thermodynamic system is strictly non-decreasing, that is, that energy is only transformed from more ordered to less ordered forms. Heat, for example, can only dissipate: it will not flow spontaneously from a cold to a hot object or area in an isolated system.1 If one interprets the orderliness of energy as a measure of its availability or usefulness to humans, then the entropy law implies that all energy transformations convert energy into less available and less useful forms. Energy cannot be transformed into work without some of the energy 1 Fermi 1956, p. 30; Van Ness 1983, p. 54. Historical Materialism, volume 13:1 (117–152) © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2005 Also available online – www.brill.nl HIMA 13,1_265_f6_117-152 3/14/05 2:50 PM Page 118 118 • Paul Burkett being dissipated as unrecoverable heat. An engine cannot operate at one hundred per cent efficiency, that is, on a cycle whose only effect is to convert energy into work: a refrigerator will not operate unless it is plugged in. -
Prosperity Without Growth?Transition the Prosperity to a Sustainable Economy 2009
Prosperity without growth? The transition to a sustainable economy to a sustainable The transition www.sd-commission.org.uk Prosperity England 2009 (Main office) 55 Whitehall London SW1A 2HH without 020 7270 8498 [email protected] Scotland growth? Osborne House 1 Osbourne Terrace, Haymarket Edinburgh EH12 5HG 0131 625 1880 [email protected] www.sd-commission.org.uk/scotland Wales Room 1, University of Wales, University Registry, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3NS Commission Development Sustainable 029 2037 6956 [email protected] www.sd-commission.org.uk/wales Northern Ireland Room E5 11, OFMDFM The transition to a Castle Buildings, Stormont Estate, Belfast BT4 3SR sustainable economy 028 9052 0196 [email protected] www.sd-commission.org.uk/northern_ireland Prosperity without growth? The transition to a sustainable economy Professor Tim Jackson Economics Commissioner Sustainable Development Commission Acknowledgements This report was written in my capacity as Economics Commissioner for the Sustainable Development Commission at the invitation of the Chair, Jonathon Porritt, who provided the initial inspiration, contributed extensively throughout the study and has been unreservedly supportive of my own work in this area for many years. For all these things, my profound thanks. The work has also inevitably drawn on my role as Director of the Research group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment (RESOLVE) at the University of Surrey, where I am lucky enough to work with a committed, enthusiastic and talented team of people carrying out research in areas relevant to this report. Their research is evident in the evidence base on which this report draws and I’m as grateful for their continuing intellectual support as I am for the financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council (Grant No: RES-152-25-1004) which keeps RESOLVE going. -
From Classrooms to Social Movements Contribution to GTI Forum the Pedagogy of Transition
May 2021 From Classrooms to Social Movements Contribution to GTI Forum The Pedagogy of Transition Blake Poland Let me begin by acknowledging that mainstream formal educational systems are largely oriented toward preparing students for a future that looks very much like the past—an increasingly tenuous assumption. Notwithstanding perennial rhetorical emphasis on “developing critical thinkers,” education has in practice overwhelmingly rewarded those who toe the line. The ranks of mavericks and historical icons are replete with those who “performed poorly” in formal educational systems. Neoliberal education emphasizing “job readiness” is but the most recent incarnation of a longstanding role of producing compliant cogs in the dominant system. Education’s societal role all but precludes the possibility of a truly transformative agenda, and not just because it increasingly relies on private-sector funding in the face of welfare state retrenchment. Transformation implies a thorough understanding of how power operates. But few educational programs provide students with those insights, preferring the convenient (and self-serving) fiction that incremental improvements (or even so-called “breakthroughs”) in knowledge drive change, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Elsewhere I have argued that deep transformation requires much more than the current obsession with technical “solutions.” Arguably, the sustainability crisis is not a technical problem. Technical solutions for many of our current challenges have, in many cases, already been developed and field tested somewhere around the world. It is unclear that it is purely a political or even social problem either. The sustainability crisis may be more accurately described as a crisis of imagination. In a quote widely attributed to Frederic Jameson, for most people “it is 1 | GTI FORUM CONTRIBUTION easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Perhaps it could even be said that the sustainability crisis is a relationship problem. -
Ecological Economics: Solutions for the Future - 2
Academic rigour This book arose from the ANZSEE (Australian New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics) conference ‘Ecological Economics: Solutions Now and in the Future’ held at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia in November 2019 (https://anzsee.org.au/2019-anzsee-conference/). In the planning for this conference we agreed that the book arising from this would be self-published so that the pdf could be given away free, and the paperback would be as cheap as possible so that students and the general public could purchase it easily. I took on the role of Editor pro bono to ensure we ended up with a book. However throughout this process we have remained committed to academic rigour. All chapters were reviewed twice by the Editor (sometimes more). Some chapters were also reviewed by other academics when the Editor thought this was needed. The Introduction was developed by the Editor and ecological economist A/Prof Philip Lawn, who originally had hoped to be co- Editor, but had to cancel due to personal reasons. Several chapters were reviewed by Dr Boyd Blackwell, President of ANZSEE. Hence, although this book was not published by a major publisher, it upholds academic rigour. The Editor, Dr Haydn Washington PANGEA Research Centre, BEES, UNSW Lead Editor of ‘A Future Beyond Growth’ (Washington and Twomey 2016); Editor ‘Positive Steps to a Steady State Economy’ (Washington 2017) Co-Director of CASSE NSW Co-Facilitator of the Ecological Economics Hub of the New Economy Network of Australia Ecological Economics: Solutions for the Future - 2 Copyright © Haydn Washington, 2020. All Rights Reserved. -
Great Transitions: Doubling Down on the Sustainable Development Goals
NOVEMBER 2020 REPORT BY THE 17 ROOMS SECRETARIAT Great Transitions Doubling down on the Sustainable Development Goals Acknowledgements This report was prepared by the 17 Rooms secretariat, which is co-chaired by Zia Khan of The Rockefeller Foundation and John McArthur of the Brookings Institution. Carolyn Whelan, an independent writer, contributed extensive drafting and editorial inputs to the report, as did Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institution. Other key contributing members of the secretariat team included Alexandra Bracken, Helena Hlavaty, Selen Özdoğan, Jacob Taylor, and Natalie Burg at the Brookings Institution and Leonie Maruani and Sherene Lewis at The Rockefeller Foundation. David Batcheck at the Brookings Institution provided invaluable editorial and design support for this report. The secretariat thanks participants in the 17 Rooms 2020 process for contributing so many remarkable collaborative insights and ideas, as reflected in the companion series of individual Room publications, which inspired the contents of this report. The secretariat is also particularly grateful to the Room Moderators who provided such energizing leadership, feedback, and support for the 17 Rooms process throughout 2020, despite the challenging global circumstances. The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and policy solutions. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations for policymakers and the public. The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the views of the Institution, its management, or its other scholars. Support for this publication was generously provided by The Rockefeller Foundation. -
Historical and Critical Review on Biophysical Economics 1
July 21, 2016 9:55 WSPC/S1793-0480 204-BRL 1630001 Biophysical Reviews and Letters Vol. 11, No. 2 (2016) 63–86 c World Scientific Publishing Company DOI: 10.1142/S1793048016300012 Historical and Critical Review on Biophysical Economics Yekbun Adig¨uzel Department of Biophysics, School of Medicine Istanbul Kemerburgaz University Kartaltepe Mah. Incirli Cad. No:11 Bakirkoy, Istanbul, Turkey [email protected] Received 18 March 2016 Revised 25 April 2016 Accepted 3 May 2016 Published 21 July 2016 Biophysical economics is initiated with the long history of the relation of economics with ecological basis and biophysical perspectives of the physiocrats. It inherently has social, economic, biological, environmental, natural, physical, and scientific grounds. Biological entities in economy like the resources, consumers, populations, and parts of production systems, etc. could all be dealt by biophysical economics. Considering this wide scope, current work is a “biophysical economics at a glance” rather than a comprehensive review of the full range of topics that may just be adequately covered in a book-length work. However, the sense of its wide range of applications is aimed to be provided to the reader in this work. Here, modern approaches and biophysical growth theory are pre- sented after the long history and an overview of the concepts in biophysical economics. Examples of the recent studies are provided at the end with discussions. This review is also related to the work by Cleveland, “Biophysical Economics: From Physiocracy to Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology” [C. J. Cleveland, in Advances in Bioeconomics and Sustainability: Essay in Honor of Nicholas Gerogescu-Roegen,eds. -
The Decline and Fall of Consumer Society?
May 2014 The Decline and Fall of Consumer Society? Maurie J. Cohen Four decades have passed since social analysts first contemplated the unraveling of consumer society in the United States and other affluent countries. During the intervening years, the implementation of public policies based on economic deregulation, trade liberalization, and militarization forestalled, and then successfully reversed, the prospect of this transition. The political consensus that supported these strategies is now breaking down, and consumer-propelled economic growth is again becoming difficult to maintain. In conjunction with changes in once-favorable demographic, economic, social, cultural, and resource trends, the foundations of contemporary mass consumerism are eroding. Patterns of uncertainty and instability are encouraging numerous lifestyle innovations. This essay explores the hypothesis that recent developments constitute early signals of the decline and fall of consumer society, at least in the US (the focus of this essay), while recognizing that any such shift is likely to be a long, complex, and halting process. A Great Transition Initiative Viewpoint Introduction Strong government intervention during the years after World War II facilitated the rise of fully-fledged consumer societies in the US and other affluent nations. Starting in most countries with the provision of guaranteed pensions, which reduced the need to save for retirement and increased propensities to spend, governments enacted an expanding array of policies to bolster consumerist lifestyles. For example, in response to the weakening of consumer-propelled economic growth in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a grand political bargain favoring deregulation of key economic sectors (particularly finance), liberalization of international trade, and reassertion of military power abroad reinvigorated household consumption in the US, prompting a new wave of acquisitive social striving and overspending.