Ecological Economics offers an authoritative overview of a rapidly developing discipline lying at the interface of economics, natural science and philosophy. This pioneering new book focuses on the concepts and methods required to integrate sciences and humanities in order to build ecological economics.Ecological Economics as a practice seeks to comprehend the evolving interactions between humans and the natural world. Ranging across the discipline from its conceptual and philosophical foundations to problems of global warming and waste production in the chemicals industry, the authors confidently address the central dilemma of control over nature by humans ignorant of the environmental impacts of their actions. Faber, Manstetten and Proops argue convincingly for an evolutionary approach to human-nature interactions and for the use of natural science concepts, such as entropy. Students and researchers concerned with environmental, resource and ecological economics will welcome Ecological Economics as a convincing and innovative approach to the creation of a discipline capable of contributing to a new relationship between human and non-human nature.

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.

Klimawandel, Artensterben, Energie- und Rohstoffmangel sind globale Herausforderungen, die unmittelbar mit unserer Wirtschaftsweise verbunden sind. Sie betreffen unser Dasein im Kern und gefährden die Möglichkeiten, heute und in Zukunft, als Gesellschaft und individuell, ein gutes Leben zu führen.  Der Raum der Fragen, für die wir Antworten benötigen, erscheint grenzenlos und das Finden des „richtigen“ Pfades für den globalen Wandel zunehmend utopisch. Wie behalten wir angesichts hochkomplexer Zusammenhänge und Wechselwirkungen den Überblick? Wie können wir Wesentliches vom Unwesentlichen unterscheiden? Welche grundlegenden Beziehungen in der Natur müssen wir in Rechnung stellen? Welche Wirtschaftsweise ist angemessen? Was ist gerecht? Und unter welchen Bedingungen sind Menschen veränderungsbereit? Dieses Buch bietet Orientierung. Es behandelt Konzepte aus den Natur-, den Wirtschaftswissenschaften und der Philosophie – u.a. Zeit, Thermodynamik, Knappheit, Verantwortung und Gerechtigkeit – die aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln ein Verständnis der anstehenden Transformation zur Nachhaltigkeit ermöglichen. Idealerweise dienen sie als Leitlinien für wirksame Entscheidungen und zeigen auf, wie trotz immenser Herausforderungen Wandel möglich wird. Das Buch richtet sich an alle, die am Wandel in Richtung Nachhaltigkeit mitwirken wollen - sei es in Politik, Wirtschaft, Verwaltung oder Zivilgesellschaft.

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.

Dealing with time is intimately linked to sustainability, because sustainability, at its core, involves long-term ethical claims. To live up to them, decision and policy-making has to consider long-term development of society, economy, and nature. However, dealing with time and such long-term development is a notoriously difficult subject, both in science and, in particular, in practical decision and policy making. Rooted in philosophical and scientific reasoning, this book explores how the concept of time can be incorporated into effective practical action. The book describes a system and uses case studies to help sustainability practitioners and researchers consider the long-term consequences of our actions in a methodical way. The system integrates scientific and practical knowledge about time and temporal developments to help break down the sometimes overwhelming complexity of sustainability issues. Combining theoretical conceptual thinking and practical applications, this book will be of great interest to students and researchers of sustainability science, environmental sciences, sustainable development, environmental economics, political sciences and practical philosophy.

This second edition is brought about by two factors. First, the initial printing sold out much more rapidly than we expected. Second, several colleagues have been kind enough to suggest that this book not only has a contribution to make to ecological economics, but also has relevance to economics general. Thus our OUf distinction distinction between between genotypic genotypic and phenotypic evolution may be used to characterise not only economic sectors, but also whole economies, and in particular economic schools of thought. For instance, the Austrian subjectivist school deals explicitly with ignorance and the emergence of novelty, and may therefore be used to analyse genotypic development. In contrast, neoclassical economics deals principally with phenotypic development. When Dr. Muller Muller of Springer-Verlag suggested the production of a second edition, we were therefore pleased that this book might remain available. Several readers and in particular reviewers of the first edition remarked, in one way or the other, that they had questions concerning several of our OUf concepts, concepts, such as genotype, phenotype, ignorance, surprise, sUlprise, novelty, novelty, knowledge, knowledge, predictable predictable and unpredictable processes etc. Of course, all these concepts are of importance for evolution in general and for invention and innovation of new techniques in particular. We therefore considered some modifications and extensions of the original text, but on the advice of colleagues, have restricted oUfselves ourselves to correcting mistakes that crept into the first edition and to two extensions ofthe of the text, text, one major, one smaller."