economist at the World Bank he developed a succinct set of management principles
for sustainability. They show which scientific and ethical judgments are inherent in
market prices and cost–benefit analyses:
• The use rate of renewable resources cannot be higher than their rate of regeneration or they are lost for future generations.
• The use of non-renewable natural resources should not exceed the discovery of
alternative sources to deliver on the same function (e.g., replacing fossil fuels
with solar technology).
• Emissions cannot be higher than the capacity of the natural environment to cope
with them.
• Human-made threats to or excessive risks for human health and the environment
should be avoided (Wikipedia 2014).
So even if one sticks with the mainstream lens of rejecting allocation decisions
through laws and agreements, the question about when prices tell the environmental
and social truth will be equally political. This process cannot be left to economist
modelers. In democracies the process needs to be as explicit and transparent as
possible. The agenda on Planetary Boundaries, or limits to growth, is about nothing
else, even though its critics like to portray it as doomsday eco-dictatorship. No one
is talking about people not being allowed to intervene in nature, intentionally
enhance natural resources or look for artificial ones. It is about developing a good
understanding of what we have and how the laws of resource reproduction coalesce
so that we can manage development processes well and equitably.
This view has also been dubbed “strong sustainability” and its advocates argue
that the three dimensions—social, ecological, economic—of sustainable development should capture its paradigmatic shift away from the old development imaginary. Sustainable development should not be delineated with three pillars of similar
importance—the dominant icon since the Earth Summit in 1992—it should instead
be portrayed as a series of embedded systems. Figure 3.4 shows that this renders the
economic system—the stark utopia of the market system—the servant rather than
the master of the social and environmental system. A discussion of the arguments
can be found in the first Global Sustainable Development Report (2014).
In line with this paradigm, ecological economists are less interested in what
might theoretically, at some point in the future, be possible if technological revolutions and yet more money were available. They are more interested in preventing
the irreversible harm caused by ignoring the long period of transition required
between now and then. It is from this perspective—also a great mindshift—that
they argue for future development paths that will host a steady state economy that
remains constant instead of exponentially expanding levels of production and
consumption. Getting there would require massive transformations of many path
dependencies in the economic and also social systems. But ruling them out means
accepting massive transformations in the ecological and social systems, which will
also impact economic systems in the mid-term.
3.2 How Mainstream Economics Views Nature and Its Governance
87
for sustainability. They show which scientific and ethical judgments are inherent in
market prices and cost–benefit analyses:
• The use rate of renewable resources cannot be higher than their rate of regeneration or they are lost for future generations.
• The use of non-renewable natural resources should not exceed the discovery of
alternative sources to deliver on the same function (e.g., replacing fossil fuels
with solar technology).
• Emissions cannot be higher than the capacity of the natural environment to cope
with them.
• Human-made threats to or excessive risks for human health and the environment
should be avoided (Wikipedia 2014).
So even if one sticks with the mainstream lens of rejecting allocation decisions
through laws and agreements, the question about when prices tell the environmental
and social truth will be equally political. This process cannot be left to economist
modelers. In democracies the process needs to be as explicit and transparent as
possible. The agenda on Planetary Boundaries, or limits to growth, is about nothing
else, even though its critics like to portray it as doomsday eco-dictatorship. No one
is talking about people not being allowed to intervene in nature, intentionally
enhance natural resources or look for artificial ones. It is about developing a good
understanding of what we have and how the laws of resource reproduction coalesce
so that we can manage development processes well and equitably.
This view has also been dubbed “strong sustainability” and its advocates argue
that the three dimensions—social, ecological, economic—of sustainable development should capture its paradigmatic shift away from the old development imaginary. Sustainable development should not be delineated with three pillars of similar
importance—the dominant icon since the Earth Summit in 1992—it should instead
be portrayed as a series of embedded systems. Figure 3.4 shows that this renders the
economic system—the stark utopia of the market system—the servant rather than
the master of the social and environmental system. A discussion of the arguments
can be found in the first Global Sustainable Development Report (2014).
In line with this paradigm, ecological economists are less interested in what
might theoretically, at some point in the future, be possible if technological revolutions and yet more money were available. They are more interested in preventing
the irreversible harm caused by ignoring the long period of transition required
between now and then. It is from this perspective—also a great mindshift—that
they argue for future development paths that will host a steady state economy that
remains constant instead of exponentially expanding levels of production and
consumption. Getting there would require massive transformations of many path
dependencies in the economic and also social systems. But ruling them out means
accepting massive transformations in the ecological and social systems, which will
also impact economic systems in the mid-term.
3.2 How Mainstream Economics Views Nature and Its Governance
87