An Introduction to Ecological Economics

Humanity’s Current Dilemma

The Global Ecosystem and the Economic Subsystem

From Localized Limits to Global Limits

Population and Poverty

Beyond Brundtland

Toward Sustainability

The Fragmentation of Economics and the Natural Sciences

Early Codevelopment of Economics and Natural Science

Economics and Ecology Specialize and Separate

Reintegration of Ecology and Economics

Conclusions

Sustainable Scale, Fair Distribution, and Efficient Allocation

Ecosystems, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services

Substitutability versus Complementarity of Natural, Human, Social, and Built Capital

Population and Carrying Capacity

Measuring Welfare and Well-Being

Valuation, Choice, and Uncertainty

Trade and Community

History of Environmental Institutions and Instruments

The Need to Develop a Shared Vision of a Sustainable Society

Successes, Failures, and Remedies

Policy Instruments: Some Background

Examples of Policies, Instruments, and Institutions

Governance

Conclusions and Prospects for the Future

References

Index

Biography

Robert Costanza is professor and chair in public policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University. His transdisciplinary research integrates the study of humans and the rest of nature to address research, policy, and management issues at multiple time and space scales, from small watersheds to the global system. He is co-founder of the International Society for Ecological Economics and founding editor in chief of Solutions (www.thesolutionsjournal.org). He is author or co-author of over 500 articles and 27 books.

John Cumberland is a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, where he served as a professor of economics and the director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research. His teaching, research, and publications have been primarily in the fields of environmental and natural resource economics. He is currently a senior fellow at the University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics (IEE).

Herman Daly is the author of many works on ecological economics. He is a professor emeritus, at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, and a former senior economist with the World Bank. He is cofounder of the ISEE and won the Netherlands Royal Academy Heineken Prize and the Right Livelihood Award in 1996 for pioneering the new discipline of ecological economics.

Robert Goodland was the environmental advisor to the World Bank Group in Washington, DC, between 1978 and 2001. The Library of Congress lists 41 of his publications. He served on the independent Extractive Industry Review of the World Bank Group’s oil, gas, and mining portfolio (2001–2004) and then became a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute. He was elected chair of the Ecological Society of America (Metropolitan) and president of the International Association of Impact Assessment. Robert Goodland passed away unexpectedly in 2013.

Richard B. Norgaard is a professor emeritus of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley. He acquired his skepticism for market exuberance while earning his PhD in economics at the University of Chicago. He has professional experience in Alaska, the Brazilian Amazon, California, and to a lesser extent in Africa, China, and Vietnam. He helped bring a coevolutionary framing to our understanding of socioecological system dynamics. He is currently writing on "Economism and the Econocene" and "The Challenges of Collectively Understanding Complex Systems."

Ida Kubiszewski is a senior lecturer at the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University. Prior to this, she was an assistant research professor at Portland State University. She is the co-editor-in-chief of a magazine/journal hybrid called Solutions and of the academic journal Reviews in Ecological Economics. Dr. Kubiszewski is a cofounder and former managing editor of the "Encyclopedia of Earth," a peer-reviewed Wikipedia about the environment. She is the author or

coauthor of more than a dozen scientific papers in the field.

Carol Franco is a senior research associate at Virginia Tech University. She is an ecological economist experienced in food security, ecosystem services, and policies for economic development and climate change mitigation and adaptation. She has participated in negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for four years now as a member of the Dominican Republic delegation. Her current responsibilities include working with government institutions on REDD+ policy frameworks on the ground in Mexico, Peru, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.

"… summarises the ‘state of the art’ in the discipline. …The ecological threats posed by the modern market system and its use of advertising to promote consumption are extensively discussed. … a useful handbook."
—South African Journal of Science, November/December 2015

"… a useful transdisciplinary lens through which to view and understand stubborn global problems of inequity, environmental degradation and declining well-being. It challenges the traditional use of GDP as a metric of progress and argues for an approach more in tune with the challenges of the 21st Century , one that builds and values stronger socio-ecological systems as the only way of ensuring transformative change for all in an increasingly full world."
—Dr. Debra Roberts, Ethekwini Municipality, Durban South Africa

"… a unique tool to approach issues that are vital for the future of the planet and of our societies. It is a fundamental book to deeply understand the complexity of the issues at stake, as well as the need to connect multiple disciplines to find the right policy solutions to today and tomorrow challenges."
—Enrico Giovannini, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"

"This book addresseses the most important problems facing both people and planet, and challenges conventional thinking. It is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the connections between wellbeing and environmental sustainability, and how to envision a better future for us all."
—Kate Pickett, The University of York

"Coming from the people who, more than anyone else, have pioneered and developed the subject, this book is much more than an introduction to ecological economics. It provides a through grounding in a field that that should be becoming central to modern political and economic policy and thinking."
—Richard Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology