Download or read book Economic Boom or Ecologic Doom written by Alvaro Federico Barra and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The natural endowment of the Democrat Republic of Congo, in the form of land, minerals, and forests, is unparalleled. The right mix of policies has the potential to unleash incentives that could transform the economy. However, transport infrastructure in the DRC is amongst the sparsest and most dilapidated in the world, and this lack of infrastructure is likely a significant constraint to growth. This work considerably advances the information that is available to infrastructure planners, and provides methodologies that could be used to make more informed decisions to identify trade-offs between economic growth and environmental endangerment. The approach draws from the state-of the art across a variety of disciplines †“ spatial (GIS) analysis, spatial econometrics, economic theory, and conservation biology †“ to create an approach that can guide the location and level of investments by estimating benefits and environmental costs at a highly disaggregated spatial scale. The analysis proceeds in four related phases that combine economic assessments with geospatial analysis. First transport costs are estimated using GIS techniques. A variety of econometric procedures are then used to determine the economic effects of changing transport costs. Second, highly disaggregated spatial data is used to estimate the effects of roads on forest cover, and the resulting biodiversity that would be at risk from local deforestation. Next the two spatial estimates are combined to simulate the effects of different policies. Finally this provides a series of maps that identify regions where there are large trade-offs between economic and ecological goals. Overall the results suggests that the siting of infrastructure needs to consider impacts at the very outset of the planning process. This report presents both new data and new techniques that can be used to identify areas of opportunity, risk, and potential for REDD+ financing. Such upstream planning has been rendered both feasible and cost effective with the availability of geo-referenced information on forest cover and economic data. This report provides the data and easily comprehensible maps for such an exercise.
Download or read book Beyond Growth written by Herman E. Daly and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.
Download or read book Doughnut Economics written by Kate Raworth and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economics is the mother tongue of public policy. It dominates our decision-making for the future, guides multi-billion-dollar investments, and shapes our responses to climate change, inequality, and other environmental and social challenges that define our times. Pity then, or more like disaster, that its fundamental ideas are centuries out of date yet are still taught in college courses worldwide and still used to address critical issues in government and business alike. That’s why it is time, says renegade economist Kate Raworth, to revise our economic thinking for the 21st century. In Doughnut Economics, she sets out seven key ways to fundamentally reframe our understanding of what economics is and does. Along the way, she points out how we can break our addiction to growth; redesign money, finance, and business to be in service to people; and create economies that are regenerative and distributive by design. Named after the now-iconic “doughnut” image that Raworth first drew to depict a sweet spot of human prosperity (an image that appealed to the Occupy Movement, the United Nations, eco-activists, and business leaders alike), Doughnut Economics offers a radically new compass for guiding global development, government policy, and corporate strategy, and sets new standards for what economic success looks like. Raworth handpicks the best emergent ideas—from ecological, behavioral, feminist, and institutional economics to complexity thinking and Earth-systems science—to address this question: How can we turn economies that need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive, into economies that make us thrive, whether or not they grow? Simple, playful, and eloquent, Doughnut Economics offers game-changing analysis and inspiration for a new generation of economic thinkers.
Download or read book The Limits to Growth written by Donella H. Meadows and published by Universe Pub. This book was released on 1972 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the factors which limit human economic and population growth and outlines the steps necessary for achieving a balance between population and production. Bibliogs
Download or read book Growth written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 665 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Smil takes readers from bacterial invasions through animal metabolisms to megacities and the global economy. He begins with organisms whose mature sizes range from microscopic to enormous, looking at disease-causing microbes, the cultivation of staple crops, and human growth from infancy to adulthood. He examines the growth of energy conversions and man-made objects that enable economic activities—developments that have been essential to civilization. Finally, he looks at growth in complex systems, beginning with the growth of human populations and proceeding to the growth of cities. He considers the challenges of tracing the growth of empires and civilizations, explaining that we can chart the growth of organisms across individual and evolutionary time, but that the progress of societies and economies, not so linear, encompasses both decline and renewal. The trajectory of modern civilization, driven by competing imperatives of material growth and biospheric limits, Smil tells us, remains uncertain.
Download or read book Enough Is Enough written by Rob Dietz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful book sets out arguments and an agenda of policy proposals for achieving a sustainable and prosperous, but non-growing economy, also known as a steady-state economy. The authors describe a plan for solving the major social and environmental problems which face us today on a finite planet with a rapidly growing population.
Download or read book Right Relationship written by Peter G. Brown and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2009-01-12 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our current economic system is unsustainable. Its fundamental elements, unlimited growth, and endless wealth accumulation fly in the face of the fact that the Earth's resources are clearly finite. In this work, the authors offer a comprehensive new economic model.
Download or read book The End of Growth written by Richard Heinberg and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2012-07-09 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to drop, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable, natural limits. Richard Heinberg's latest landmark work goes to the heart of the ongoing financial crisis, explaining how and why it occurred, and what we must do to avert the worst potential outcomes. Written in an engaging, highly readable style, it shows why growth is being blocked by three factors: Resource depletion; Environmental impacts, and; Crushing levels of debt. These converging limits will force us to re-evaluate cherished economic theories, and to reinvent money and commerce. The End of Growth describes what policy makers, communities and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth's budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding Gross Domestic Product.
Download or read book Endangered Economies written by Geoffrey Heal and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades since Geoffrey Heal began his field-defining work in environmental economics, one central question has animated his research: "Can we save our environment and grow our economy?" This issue has become only more urgent in recent years with the threat of climate change, the accelerating loss of ecosystems, and the rapid industrialization of the developing world. Reflecting on a lifetime of experience not only as a leading voice in the field, but as a green entrepreneur, activist, and advisor to governments and global organizations, Heal clearly and passionately demonstrates that the only way to achieve long-term economic growth is to protect our environment. Writing both to those conversant in economics and to those encountering these ideas for the first time, Heal begins with familiar concepts, like the tragedy of the commons and unregulated pollution, to demonstrate the underlying tensions that have compromised our planet, damaging and in many cases devastating our natural world. Such destruction has dire consequences not only for us and the environment but also for businesses, which often vastly underestimate their reliance on unpriced natural benefits like pollination, the water cycle, marine and forest ecosystems, and more. After painting a stark and unsettling picture of our current quandary, Heal outlines simple solutions that have already proven effective in conserving nature and boosting economic growth. In order to ensure a prosperous future for humanity, we must understand how environment and economy interact and how they can work in harmony—lest we permanently harm both.
Download or read book The Ecological Transition written by John W. Bennett and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written during the height of the ecology movement, The Ecological Transition is a stunning interdisciplinary work. It combines anthropology, ecology, and sociology to formulate an understanding of cultural-environmental relationships. While anthropologists have been studying relationships between humans and the physical environment for a very long time, only in the last thirty years have questions inherent in these relationships broadened beyond description and classification. For example, the concept of environment has been extended beyond the physical into the social. Although anthropologists have adopted many of the concepts that Bennett develops in the book, he also feels that the central issues have never been addressed, either by anthropologists or by people in related disciplines. The most important of these, in Bennett's opinion, is the failure to incorporate a respect for the environmental in contemporary culture, which would allow making exceptions in certain human practices in order to protect the environment. His point in The Ecological Transition is that a basic cultural change in modern civilization is necessary to achieve this end. Both a theoretical and a practical work, The Ecological Transition emphasizes the relationships between human culture, the physical environment, technology, and social policy. The Ecological Transition is a challenging volume that makes us face the consequences of human behavior in the modern world: its effect on pollution, natural resources, agriculture, the economy, and population, to name just a few areas. The book remains a significant contribution to the discourse on social, economic, and environmental problems. While the book was first published in 1976, it still reads as a contemporary tract.
Download or read book The Ecocentrists written by Keith Makoto Woodhouse and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disenchanted with the mainstream environmental movement, a new, more radical kind of environmental activist emerged in the 1980s. Radical environmentalists used direct action, from blockades and tree-sits to industrial sabotage, to save a wild nature that they believed to be in a state of crisis. Questioning the premises of liberal humanism, they subscribed to an ecocentric philosophy that attributed as much value to nature as to people. Although critics dismissed them as marginal, radicals posed a vital question that mainstream groups too often ignored: Is environmentalism a matter of common sense or a fundamental critique of the modern world? In The Ecocentrists, Keith Makoto Woodhouse offers a nuanced history of radical environmental thought and action in the late-twentieth-century United States. Focusing especially on the group Earth First!, Woodhouse explores how radical environmentalism responded to both postwar affluence and a growing sense of physical limits. While radicals challenged the material and philosophical basis of industrial civilization, they glossed over the ways economic inequality and social difference defined people’s different relationships to the nonhuman world. Woodhouse discusses how such views increasingly set Earth First! at odds with movements focused on social justice and examines the implications of ecocentrism’s sweeping critique of human society for the future of environmental protection. A groundbreaking intellectual history of environmental politics in the United States, The Ecocentrists is a timely study that considers humanism and individualism in an environmental age and makes a case for skepticism and doubt in environmental thought.
Download or read book Principles of Environmental Economics and Sustainability written by Ahmed Hussen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Principles of Environmental Economics and Sustainability was the first textbook to make a serious attempt to systematically integrate ecological and economic principles. It successfully introduced ecological perspectives to the study of environmental economics while maintaining the integrity of the standard economic approach. In this new edition this notion continues to be embraced while also offering readers several further features, including greater in-depth coverage of the economics of climate change, expanded reference sections, and an updated and expanded "review and discussion questions" section. The unique integration of both mainstream and ecological approaches which this textbook provides proves particularly illuminating in relation to the following topics: economics of climate change environmental valuation cost–benefit analysis and the environment sustainability in theory and practice limits to growth the role of technology the business case for environmental sustainability. Written in a clear and accessible way, this key textbook is an excellent resource for all students of environmental economics. With study tools including learning objectives, case studies, and charts and graphs, this volume uses real-world examples to engage both students and academics within the field. This text also accompanied by a Companion Website including resources for both students and instructors. Here you will find student study questions, interactive quizzes, and an instructor manual composed of lecture PowerPoint templates.
Download or read book Sustainable Development and Economic Growth in the Third World written by United States. Congress. Joint Economic Committee. Subcommittee on Technology and National Security and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Principles of Environmental Economics and Sustainability written by Ahmed M. Hussen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text offers a systematic exposition of environmental and natural resource economics. It considers a variety of real world examples to illustrate the policy relevance and implications of key economic and ecological concepts.
Download or read book The Challenge of Politics written by Douglas W. Simon and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2019-01-02 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[This is] a textbook that offers students a good introduction to the science of politics while emphasizing the moral, empirical, and prudential dimensions of politics." —Prosper Bernard, Jr., College of Staten Island This updated Sixth Edition of The Challenge of Politics enables students to see how the subfields of political science converge around a set of crucial questions, such as "Can we as citizens and students articulate and defend a view of the good political life and its guiding political values?" "Can we bring political wisdom to bear on judgments about politics and public issues?" and "Can we develop a science of politics to help us understand significant political phenomena—the empirical realities of politics?" Balancing lessons of classic and contemporary theory with contemporary politics and empirical study, the book equips students with the tools they need to explore the impact of philosophy and ideology, recognize major forms of government, evaluate empirical findings, and understand how policy issues directly affect people’s lives. The updated Sixth Edition includes new material on the 2016 presidential elections, the role of social media in politics, and an expanded discussion on the rise of populist movements. Give your students the SAGE edge! SAGE edge offers a robust online environment featuring an impressive array of free tools and resources for review, study, and further exploration, keeping both instructors and students on the cutting edge of teaching and learning. Learn more at edge.sagepub.com/simon6e.
Download or read book Eco Fearism written by Bhawani Shankar Adhikari and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world full of doubt and despair, we are yet to realize the invaluable importance of societal coherence and correspondence, especially in relation to our planet's ecosystem. Intelligent, empathetic life, such as ourselves, has limitless potential to co-create and edify a new paradigm of smart coexistence, if we manage to get fear under control. The society that we have constructed has undervalued life's potential because of individualistic separatism that seems to have been born out of fear of survival. Our fears of going extinct should be, counter-intuitively enough, not only a motivation for us to thrive in meaningful coexistence, but also an inspiration for us to be able to build a future that is worthy of our true capacities. As we dive deeper into Eco-Fearism, breaking the boundaries of our limitations and striving for excellence, we are enlightened by knowledge and by the hope that we can surpass our own immaturity and take care of ourselves and our planet through careful reflection.
Download or read book The Crash Course written by Chris Martenson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-02-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The next twenty years will be completely unlike the last twenty years. The world is in economic crisis, and there are no easy fixes to our predicament. Unsustainable trends in the economy, energy, and the environment have finally caught up with us and are converging on a very narrow window of time—the "Twenty-Teens." The Crash Course presents our predicament and illuminates the path ahead, so you can face the coming disruptions and thrive--without fearing the future or retreating into denial. In this book you will find solid facts and grounded reasoning presented in a calm, positive, non-partisan manner. Our money system places impossible demands upon a finite world. Exponentially rising levels of debt, based on assumptions of future economic growth to fund repayment, will shudder to a halt and then reverse. Unfortunately, our financial system does not operate in reverse. The consequences of massive deleveraging will be severe. Oil is essential for economic growth. The reality of dwindling oil supplies is now internationally recognized, yet virtually no developed nations have a Plan B. The economic risks to individuals, companies, and countries are varied and enormous. Best-case, living standards will drop steadily worldwide. Worst-case, systemic financial crises will toss the world into jarring chaos. This book is written for those who are motivated to learn about the root causes of our predicaments, protect themselves and their families, mitigate risks as much as possible, and control what effects they can. With challenge comes opportunity, and The Crash Course offers a positive vision for how to reshape our lives to be more balanced, resilient, and sustainable.
