Created: Aug 09, 2007
Updated: Jun 13, 2008
All Areas of Focus » Business and Economics »

Ecological Economics


Ecological Economics


photo source
Ecological economics posits that human capital cannot be exchanged for natural capital and, as such, that natural capital is undervalued in the current economic system. Ecological economics, which places economics as a subset of ecology, differentiates itself from neoclassical economics by accounting for physical reality; in particular the laws of physics and thermodynamics and an understanding of biological systems. Ecological economics also distinguishes growth from development, finding that only the latter raises quality of life.

Featured Resources

Ecological Economics: a journal that furthers the study and management of "nature's household" (ecology) and "humankind's household"




The
Ecological Economics web-log
is designed to daylight and refine economists’ and ecologists' views, agreements, and disagreements on current environmental and natural resource issues.


Featured Organizations

The European Society for Ecological Economics is dedicated to advancing understanding of the relationships among ecological, social and economic systems for the mutual well-being of nature and people.




Earth Economics is devoted to promoting ecosystem health and ecological economics and to halting the globalization of unsustainable economic policies, focusing on the vital areas of toxics, forests, fisheries and global trade policy.

Ecological Economics


"Decision making requires either explicit or implicit valuation, so it is important to recognize the relationship between valuation and the goals being served. There are at least three broad goals which have been identified as important to managing economic systems within the context of the planet's ecological life support system:

1. ecological sustainability
2. social fairness
3. resource allocation efficiency

Ecological Economics is an attempt to incorporate the above ideas in a transdisciplinary effort including a full range of natural and social sciences. It has made significant progress in redefining broad social goals, valuation of human, natural and social capital relative to those goals and developing adaptive institutions to implement the new goals"

~ Dr. Robert Costanza source


Med_foggy

Keywords

environmental accounting, natural capital, natural capitalism, ecology, externalities, external costs, valuing ecosystem services, natural life-support structure, economic value, ecocentric, economy, alternate economies, scarcity, green business, human well-being, biosphere well-being, green economics, sustainability, sustainable development, growth, welfare, supply and demand, fungible, triple bottom line, practical economics, Herman Daly, steady-state economy

Related WiserEarth Portals

Join the Discussion Forum to meet others interested in this Area of Focus.




Comments (1 - 0 of 0)

Login to Post a Comment.