History and evolution of ecological economics
Course Learning Outcome
Construct the pre-analytic vision of ecological economics.
Sub-module Outcome:
Examine the history and evolution of ecological economics.
Activities:
- Reading: Introduction and Chapter 1 of Daly’s and Farley’s (2004) Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications.
- Reading: Chapter 2 of Costanza’s “Introduction to Ecological Economics: Chapter 2”
- Discussion board: Why might excessive resource use have greater impacts on future generations than the current one? Consider the definition of Pareto efficient allocation. If the current generation is the de facto owner of all resources, could it be Pareto efficient for this generation to consume fewer resources so that future generations are better off?
- Reading: “Stewardship for a ‘Full’ World”
- Project reading: “Introduction: What does an Ecological Economist do?” in Farley, Erickson, and Daly (2005), Ecological Economics: A Workbook for Problem-based Learning.
- Video: Watch Costanza’s talk on “Reintegrating the Study of Humans and the Rest of Nature”
- Discussion board: Write a one page description of your vision of a sustainable and desirable future, i.e. what you believe are the desirable ends towards which society should allocate its resources. Use your imaginations without ignoring the laws of physics and ecology. Post your vision on the discussion board. Read and comment on the other students’ visions. You will be asked to return to this in the module on societal challenges and paradigm shifts.
- Suggested reading: Ropke, I. (2004) The early history of modern ecological economics Ecological Economics 50: 293-314. AND Ropke, I. 2005. Trends in the development of ecological economics from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Ecological Economics 55(2):262-290.
Self Check:
At the end of this section you should be able to answer the following questions:
- What does ‘transdisciplinary’ mean, and how is it different from multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary?
- What is the different between growth and development?
- What are “The Lisbon Principles”?
- What is general systems theory?
