In today's world - despite the dramatic anthropogenic environmental changes - a proper understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature requires a certain detachment. The pressing problems in their whole extent will only be fully understood and solved with comprehensive and patient analysis. Accordingly, this book develops new perspectives on fundamental questions of biology, ecology, and the economy, integrated within a framework of a terminology specially devised by the authors. By illuminating the epistemological backgrounds of ecological-economic research, the authors lay foundations for interdisciplinary environmental research and offer guidelines for practical action. In close contact to the findings of present-day biology and economics, they demonstrate the fruitfulness as well as the shortcomings of modern science for the understanding of the proper place of humankind in nature.. Frequently, current problems in the fields of economics, ecology, politics, philosophy and biology are discussed in a kind of "dialogue" with thinkers and poets like Bacon, Quesnay, Kant, Goethe and Novalis. On the other hand, the book offers traits of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought: a precise, analytical approach to theory and a pragmatic approach to action. Both approaches are used by the authors complementarily. Thus the authors lay the foundations for an ecological economical and political practice which is able to tackle concrete environmental problems on an encompassing and long-term basis. This translated volume will be of great use and interest to students of ecology, economics and in particular environmental education, sustainable development and environmental ethics.

Following the reforms undertaken in the last two decades, India's economic landscape has been radically transformed. This book examines the new economic map, which is shown to be shaped by two intertwined currents: globalization and sustainability. Weaving extensively through these currents and the canvas of development in the Indian economy they open up, this work seeks to introduce new methodologies, a corpus of concepts and modes of analysis to make sense of the emerging order of things. What transpires in the course of the investigation is a critical reflection of the present in which not only the new institutions, policies and practices are analyzed, but their limitations, fragility and at times myopic approaches are brought to light. By highlighting the rough edges created by the new conditions, this book is firmly engaged with the frontier of the Indian economy and ends up challenging many well-known conjectures and assumptions. In doing so, it strives to shift the Indian economy to a new terrain, thereby fundamentally re-locating and re-orienting the discourse of that economy as a unique object of analysis.

Land degradation is increasingly considered as a global problem. The extent of degraded and degrading areas adversely impacts on large numbers of people and leads to significant social and economic costs, thus raising the questions: In which way is it worth taking action against land degradation? Where and when should action take place, and what are costs related to certain actions? For policy makers it is important to know the social and economic costs linked to the current and future status of land degradation. A conceptual framework that allows comparing the costs of action against land degradation versus the costs of inaction is provided in this book. The applicability of the framework is illustrated with case studies and prepares the ground for a global assessment on the costs of land degradation.

Is sustainable development the answer to environmental decline and development failure? In 1987, the Brundtland Commission concluded that sustainable development would integrate environmental concerns into mainstream policies, shifting focus from weak and peripheral environmental management to the socio-economic policy sources of environmental impacts. The 1992 Earth Summit confirmed this approach, endorsing integrated environmental and economic accounting by policy makers. Green accounting is now being implemented to formulate national policies for sustainable development. Environment, Growth and Development offers an analysis of sustainable economic growth and development based on operational variables derived from the new systems of green accounting. A complete revision and expansion of the first edition, this book offers a new focus on macroeconomic aspects through its analysis of green accounting methods, comparing the goods of economic production and consumption with the bads of losses of natural resources and environmental quality. Beyond economics, ways of evaluating social, cultural, aesthetic or ethical issues are also proposed.

Thomas Sterner's book is an attempt to encourage more widespread and careful use of economic policy instruments. The book compares the accumulated experiences of the use of economic policy instruments in the U.S. and Europe, as well as in rich and poor countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Ambitious in scope, it discusses the design of instruments that can be employed in any country in a wide range of contexts, including transportation, industrial pollution, water pricing, waste, fisheries, forests, and agriculture.

While deeply rooted in economics, Policy Instruments for Environmental and Natural Resource Management is informed by political, legal, ecological, and psychological research. The new edition enhances what has already been widely hailed as a highly innovative work. The book includes greatly expanded coverage of climate change, covering aspects related to policy design, international equity and discounting, voluntary carbon markets, permit trading in United States, and the Clean Development Mechanism. Focusing ever more on leading ideas in both theory and policy, the new edition brings experimental economics into the main of its discussions. It features expanded coverage of the monitoring and enforcement of environmental policy, technological change, the choice of policy instruments under imperfect competition, and subjects such as corporate social responsibility, bio-fuels, payments for ecosystem services, and REDD.

Thomas Sterner's book is an attempt to encourage more widespread and careful use of economic policy instruments. The book compares the accumulated experiences of the use of economic policy instruments in the U.S. and Europe, as well as in rich and poor countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Ambitious in scope, it discusses the design of instruments that can be employed in any country in a wide range of contexts, including transportation, industrial pollution, water pricing, waste, fisheries, forests, and agriculture.

While deeply rooted in economics, Policy Instruments for Environmental and Natural Resource Management is informed by political, legal, ecological, and psychological research. The new edition enhances what has already been widely hailed as a highly innovative work. The book includes greatly expanded coverage of climate change, covering aspects related to policy design, international equity and discounting, voluntary carbon markets, permit trading in United States, and the Clean Development Mechanism. Focusing ever more on leading ideas in both theory and policy, the new edition brings experimental economics into the main of its discussions. It features expanded coverage of the monitoring and enforcement of environmental policy, technological change, the choice of policy instruments under imperfect competition, and subjects such as corporate social responsibility, bio-fuels, payments for ecosystem services, and REDD.

Rapid growth of the global economy has accelerated the degradation of the Earth's most important asset: the environment. Increasing poverty and challenges arising from climate change further threaten the planet's natural systems. With a rising global population, the demand on natural resources to cover even basic human needs is intensifying - supporting businesses that promote the sustainable use of natural resources and help ensure their long-term viability is imperative. As part of a pioneering movement to harness business towards effecting environmental change, The Nature Conservancy launched EcoEnterprises Fund in 2000 to provide investment capital to grow small "eco"-businesses in Latin America. There is a compelling need for financing this niche. Companies of this size truly drive change - creating the engine for economic activity and generating livelihoods for bottom of the pyramid rural peoples which brings about positive social and conservation impacts. EcoEnterprises Fund's portfolio highlights twenty-three cutting-edge companies, in expanding sectors such as organic agriculture, ecotourism, sustainable forestry, and non-timber forest products which include innovative industry first-movers-from organic shrimp to biodynamic flowers, and ready-to-drink smoothies made from the latest Amazonian berry. With a successful ten-year track record, EcoEnterprises Fund has valuable learning to share - from what pitfalls to avoid when structuring investments to what types of assistance entrepreneurs in these emerging environmental sectors need most. Portfolio for the Planet translates a decade of experience into accessible lessons for both veterans and newcomers in the field: for those interested in investing in sustainable businesses, discovering novel approaches to environmental conservation, or seeing entrepreneurs pursue their dreams.

Input-Output Analysis (IOA) is widely used in the field of ecological economics, industrial ecology, and environmental sciences. Industrial Ecology (IE) and Ecological Economics (EE) are promising and growing fields. IOA plays a crucial role in analyzing the related environmental and resource issues and providing quantitative information to many research questions and policy implications. The major aim of this book is to provide not only a comprehensive overview of environmental IOA from 1930s to the present but also the frontiers of environmental IOA including energy structural decomposition analysis, spatial energy structural decomposition analysis, multi-regional waste make-use analysis, augmented waste input-output analysis, dynamic structural decomposition analysis with product lifetime distributions, and endogenous input-output analysis with product lifetime distributions to professionals, practitioners, and students. This book presents a novel dynamic structural decomposition analysis to evaluate the effects of the product lifetime shifts and structural changes such as technological changes and final demand shifts on the life cycle energy consumptions. It also contributes to modelling a simple social accounting method with cumulative product lifetime distributions and argues how product lifetime extension affects energy consumptions and income flow throughout the entire economic system. The book demonstrates the author's expertise in IOA and is an essential read for students and scholars in the field.

Providing an updated state of the art report on the effects of the 2003 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, this volume has a particular emphasis on the governance of institutional changes and national/regional implementation. Written from an agricultural economist's point of view and enriched by the contribution of political scientists and policy makers, this book offers: - an updated report of the European debate on agricultural and rural policies; -an in-depth analysis of the decoupling process of the agricultural financial support in Europe; - an analysis of the CAP implementation in the old and new Europe Member States ; - a discussion on the future scenarios for the European Agricultural Policies Based on a selection of papers from the 109th Seminar of the European Association of the Agricultural Economists (EAAE), this book, with a foreword by Franz Fischler, also includes four commissioned contributions from leaders in the field including Sofia Davidova, Roberto Esposti, Tassos Haniotis and Johan Swinnen.

A collection of scholarly accounts and articles written by recognized experts in environmental economics, this book is the first of its kind and as a valuable reference and textual source for graduate students and active researchers. It draws together the pedagogical discussion of the key tools used to conduct theoretical and empirical research in natural resource and environmental economics. With contributions by prominent international researchers like Robert Ayres, Charles Perrings and Anastasios Xepapadeas, the book will be useful for researchers who wish to learn new techniques or change their area of research emphasis within natural resource and environmental economics or those who wish to familiarize themselves with these tools.

In modern society, we tend to have faith in technology. But is our concept of ?technology? itself a cultural illusion? This book challenges the idea that humanity as a whole is united in a common development toward increasingly efficient technologies. Instead it argues that modern technology implies a kind of global ?zero-sum game? involving uneven resource flows, which make it possible for wealthier parts of global society to save time and space at the expense of humans and environments in the poorer parts.

We tend to think of the functioning of machines as if it was detached from the social relations of exchange which make machines economically and physically possible (in some areas). But even the steam engine that was the core of the Industrial Revolution in England was indissolubly linked to slave labour and soil erosion in distant cotton plantations. And even as seemingly benign a technology as railways have historically saved time (and accessed space) primarily for those who can afford them, but at the expense of labour time and natural space lost for other social groups with less purchasing power. The existence of technology, in other words, is not a cornucopia signifying general human progress, but the unevenly distributed result of unequal resource transfers that the science of economics is not equipped to perceive. Technology is not simply a relation between humans and their natural environment, but more fundamentally a way of organizing global human society. From the very start it has been a global phenomenon, which has intertwined political, economic and environmental histories in complex and inequitable ways. This book unravels these complex connections and rejects the widespread notion that technology will make the world sustainable. Instead it suggests a radical reform of money, which would be as useful for achieving sustainability as for avoiding financial breakdown.

It brings together various perspectives from environmental and economic anthropology, ecological economics, political ecology, world-system analysis, fetishism theory, semiotics, environmental and economic history, and development theory. Its main contribution is a new understanding of technological development and concerns about global sustainability as questions of power and uneven distribution, ultimately deriving from the inherent logic of general-purpose money. It should be of interest to students and professionals with a background or current engagement in anthropology, sustainability studies, environmental history, economic history, or development studies.

The utilization of natural resources to satisfy worldwide growing consumption of goods and services has severe ecological consequences. Aside from the projected doubling of food consumption in the next fifty years, the growing trade of biofuels and other commodities is a global challenge as the economic activities in the primary sector (i.e. mining, fisheries, aquaculture, forestry and agriculture) can damage biodiversity and ecosystem services. This should be taken into account in the decision-making affecting the global value chains linking consumer, retailer, processor, and producer in the North and the South. To cover the topic of ecosystem services and global trade this book is organized into four major parts. Part 1 gives the theoretical framework from an ecological, economic and political perspectives. Part 2 explores how internationally traded biophysical commodities from agriculture, forestry and fisheries translates into a virtual flow of land, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. Part 3 describes how two widely used accounting tools (i.e., Life Cycle Assessment and Green National Accounts) deal with international aspects of ecosystem services, and Part 4 shows how instruments like labelling, bans, or payments for ecosystem services in the private and public sector can influence trade patterns and the management of ecosystem services. This collection is a valuable contribution to the global change science dealing with ecosystem services. It illustrates the consequences of international trade on global ecosystem services and provides an overview of accounting tools and of market-based policy instruments to address negative and positive externalities. The book is certainly innovative, because it brings together research findings from distinct disciplines especially Industrial Ecology and Ecosystem Sciences, as well as Environmental Economics and Political Science.

Written by an economist and an investment professional, this book addresses the twin crises that the world is facing in the form of a simultaneous financial and environmental credit crunch. Financially, consumers are less able to consume now, and pay later. Environmentally, we may have already reached our credit limit and the bill for past financial and environmental consumption is falling due. Whether the financial credit crunch constrains consumers in a way that will be environmentally supportive, naturally slowing the consumption of finite resources, or hinders any effective resolution of the environmental credit crunch is of crucial importance. Policy responses to the financial crisis are likely to be constrained by the political need to support the economic status quo, and when combined with a global reduction in available investment capital there are serious challenges ahead if the economic and environmental damage of the environmental credit crunch is to be minimised. This book asks whether financial crunch-induced changes in consumer behaviour will be enough to avoid, or reduce, the environmental crunch many believe is just round the corner. Donovan and Hudson combine their respective economic and environmental perspectives to address this key question, reviewing this 'tale of two crunches' from the perspective of different economic sectors. The answer to the conundrum this book poses may lie in the only unlimited resource on the planet - human ingenuity.

This volume gathers contributors across a wide range of disciplines to explore the relationship between the environment, economics, and development in Nigeria from the twentieth century to the present, examining issues such as violence, health, and contemporary concerns about sustainability and conservation. It sheds light not just on the environmental history of Nigeria - a crucial, paradigmatic case in its own right - but also offers insights into these issues as they manifest themselves throughout the developing world.

Permit trading is an environmental policy instrument that has received increasing levels of attention over recent years. Coming from the field of air quality management, with the European CO2 emissions trading system being the most prominent example, it enters new fields of application, such as land use policy and biodiversity protection, water quality and water quantity trading. This book gives an overview of these recent developments and discusses the possibilities and limits of permit trading in environmental policies. The advantages of permit trading are not only seen with respect to economic efficiency, which leads to achieving the environmental target at minimum cost, but also with respect to the instrument's environmental effectiveness. By setting a cap for the overall emissions, a given environmental target can be met. This makes permit trading an interesting case for many environmental fields where safeguarding the environmental target plays a dominant role. Against this background, permit trading is discussed in environmental policy fields, where it has not been considered before, for example, land use management, biodiversity protection and water trading. Permit Trading in Different Applications analyses the properties of permit trading: its possibilities and limitations, its design options and its restrictions on a more general level. It demonstrates how lessons learnt in established policy fields like air quality management can be transferred to new and emerging fields of application. This collection will provide students and practitioners in environmental sciences and policy with valuable research into instrument choice and design with respect to permit trading.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's (1906-94) most original contribution is his bioeconomic theory. Based on a profound rethinking of the foundations of neoclassical economics, bioeconomics represents a completely new paradigm compared to both the standard and the Marxist approach. Opening economics to natural sciences led Georgescu-Roegen to point out the bio-physical limits to growth. In the last years of his life, he also criticised the sustainable development paradigm, but his criticism disappeared together with him, only to re-emerge recently, thanks to the research on his archiveand to the interest for his viewpoints within the framework of 'degrowth'. In his last years Georgescu-Roegen intended to publish a text entitled Bioeconomics, as an initial systematic arrangement of this doctrine. This book aims to pick up that project in two ways: first, collecting Goergescu-Roegen's main contributions to bioeconomic theory, some still unpublished, and tackling the principal nubs of the discipline particularly the criticism of sustainable development. Second, recuperating that full multidisciplinarity that represents the profoundest characteristic of the bioeconomic theory. The concluding essay is now considered a cornerstone of the degrowth perspective.

How did one group of indigenous societies, on the Northwest Coast of North America, manage to live sustainably with their ecosystems for over two thousand years? Can the answer to this question inform the current debate about sustainability in today's social ecological systems? The answer to the first question involves identification of the key institutions that characterized those societies. It also involves explaining why these institutions, through their interactions with each other and with the non-human components, provided both sustainability and its necessary corollary, resilience. Answering the second question involves investigating ways in which key features of today's social ecological systems can be changed to move toward sustainability, using some of the rules that proved successful on the Northwest Coast of North America. Ronald L. Trosper shows how human systems connect environmental ethics and sustainable ecological practices through institutions.

As the threats of food insecurity loom ever larger, the world faces the sad irony of food shortages in the global South alongside a purported 'obesity epidemic' in the global North. The twin issues of food production and food access are of particular concern in the context of climate change, 'peak oil', biofuels, and land grabs by wealthy nations.

Food Security, Nutrition and Sustainability offers critical insights by international scholars, with chapters on global food security, supermarket power, new technologies, and sustainability. The book also assesses the contributions of diet and nutrition research in building socially just and environmentally sustainable food systems and provides policy recommendations to improve the health and environmental status of contemporary agri-food systems. The book features contributions from a range of social science perspectives, including sociology, anthropology, public health and geography, with case study material drawn from throughout the world.

This title includes a number of Open Access chapters. This valuable compendium provides an overview of the variables and consequences of oceanic carbon cycling in the context of climate change. The chapters highlight the importance of marine plankton in carbon processing as well as the effects of rising CO2 and temperature in their functioning. Marine ecosystems are being increasingly threatened by growing human pressures, including climate change. Understanding the consequences that climate change may have is crucial to predict the future of our oceans. Rising temperatures and ocean acidification may profoundly alter the mode of matter and energy transformation in marine ecosystems, which could have irreversible consequences for our planet on ecological timescales. For that reason, the scientific community has engaged in the grand challenge of studying the variables and consequences of oceanic carbon cycling in the context of climate change, which has emerged as a relevant field of science. The book is broken into four sections: Understanding the Importance of Ocean Biogeochemistry Quantifying Oceanic Carbon Variables Phytoplankton and Oceanic Carbon Cycle Ocean Acidification Edited by a researcher with many years of experience and with contributions from scientists from around the world, this volume explores the most important topics on climate change and oceanic carbon cycling.

This book describes the changing landscape of European forest ownership and explores the impact a new, often urban, generation of forest owners may have on the future of one of our most basic resources - forests. Forests have not played a major role in rural studies thus far, however they constitute an important part of many rural areas. Drawing on Swedish cases and comparison cases from various other areas of Europe, the authors present these 'new forest owners' as a pivotal factor in the changing relationships between urban and rural life. The chapters explore how forest production, the relationship to the environment, urban-rural relations and local communities have already changed as well as discussing what might be expected for the future. A result of work in the Swedish research programme PLURAL and related projects, such as the EU Cost Action FACESMAP, this volume will be of interest to scholars of forestry and rural studies, as well as to researchers in environmental, population and globalization studies more broadly.

This book's pluralistic, non-dogmatic, and committed investigation of the values of ecological sustainability, economic justice, and human dignity provides balanced analysis of environmental problems and their potential solutions.

Ecosystem services can be broadly defined as the aspects of ecosystems that provide benefits to people. This book provides guidance on the valuation of ecosystem services, using the case of multifunctional wetlands to illustrate and make recommendations regarding the methods and techniques that can be applied to appraise management options. It provides a review of ecosystem service valuation rationale, including its importance from both a policy and project appraisal perspective, and a useful reference when considering policy and appraisal of ecosystem management options. It shows how legal obligations and other high-level management targets should be taken into account in valuation exercises, thus giving important policy context to the management options.

The authors set out what they call an Ecosystem Services Approach to the full appraisal of the role of ecosystem services in the economy and society. Although concentrating on wetlands, the approaches suggested provide an assessment framework that can be applied to other types of ecosystem assets.

This text is the premier introductory environmental economics text for non-majors. Policy-oriented coverage of environmental economics for majors and non-majors alike. Environmental Economics and Policy 6/e is a companion text to the larger Environmental and Natural Resource Economics 8/e. This smaller, paper-bound policy text is intended for a broader audience that includes political science, environmental studies, and agricultural programs. Environmental Economics and Policy provides a broad but nuanced introduction to the field of environmental economics. This text begins with an introduction to core concepts and theory, followed by a series of policy chapters that are self-contained, allowing for a great degree of flexibility in course design. Boxes throughout the text introduce a large number of real-world examples and ongoing policy debates in order to bring new perspective to the issues being discussed. The sixth edition features new co-author Lynne Lewis from Bates College, a new chapter on land, more coverage on the use of GIS in both analysis and policy, and updates on topics such as climate, water pollution, transportation, and energy.

This book looks at agriculture and the environment, placed within the dynamic context of post-communist societal change and entry into the European Union (EU). Scrieciu explores developments in eleven Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and argues for agriculture's natural place in these societies. The history of these countries is significant in how it has shaped the institutions and influenced the outcomes.

In many cases, during communism, agriculture was not considered a strategic branch for a nation's development. An ecological consciousness did not figure high on the agendas of authoritarian regimes. After 1990, some post-communist farm economies progressed slower than others, and environmental pressures mostly diminished with agricultural restructuring. In parts of CEE, increases in numbers of low-input small farms have resulted in some, though largely unintended, ecological benefits. A dual environmental challenge has nevertheless surfaced. On one hand, environmentally unsustainable practices have been attributed to some low-input farming. On the other hand, risks of farm over-intensification and resource overexploitation are on the rise. Also, environmental regulatory and institutional frameworks are not always effectively in place.

EU membership is not creating the anticipated benefits for farm growth. There are a number of systemic structural barriers preventing many farmers from drawing on Common Agricultural Policy incentives and support. The presence of many vulnerable poor farms is clearly problematic, particularly economically. However, small-scale farms could be made more acceptable and profitable by ensuring EU policies acknowledge their value and by building institutions to support alternative farm growth strategies, aside from the traditional European model of individual corporate farm expansion. The voluntary uptake of grassroots rural cooperation and farm associations may represent such an alternative. Future European farm policy reforms need to reach the small and vulnerable, and better tackle issues of farm equity, poverty, and agricultural sustainability in the new Europe. This is a timely contribution as this type of "transition" has just begun. This book should be of use to students and researchers looking at agricultural and environmental economics, post-communist rural societal change, European integration and the Common Agricultural Policy. It may be also useful and of high relevance to policy analysts and those involved in agricultural and rural development policy-making in the region or in other countries facing similar problems.

This textbook has two main objectives. Firstly, it outlines the problems associated with the management and conservation of marine living resources, with particular attention given to the twin concepts of economic value and sustainability. It demonstrates the contribution that economics can make to understanding these problems as well as helping to frame policies to mitigate them. Secondly, it looks in detail at the key methods that may be used to collect and analyse socio-economic data, oriented towards the information needs of decision makers and stakeholders involved in fisheries management. Together, these two objectives address the question: how does society make the best use of its marine living resources?