Goodwin (2008): "An Overview of Climate Change"

Goodwin, Neva (2008): "An Overview of Climate Change: What does it mean for our way of life? What is the best future we can hope for?" GDAE Institute at Tufts University, Working Paper No. 08-01, March.

This paper discusses whether climate change will require a significant reduction of consumption among the richer people in the world, and ends with the most optimistic picture the author can conjure up, of the world in the year 2075. That hopeful picture is of a world in which inequalities – among and within nations – have been substantially reduced. The challenges and adjustments confronting humanity in the coming decades provide an opportunity that could be used to mitigate climate change in ways that can improve the circumstances of the poor. Ecological reasons to reduce throughput of energy and materials in economic systems will require the abandonment of high-consumption life-styles. The 21st century will be an era of many losses, but it is conceivable that societies will successfully make the transition from goals of economic growth, as understood in the 20th century, to goals of maintaining and increasing sustainable well-being.

The working paper is available at:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/wp/08-01OverviewOfClimateChange.pdf


For more on GDAE’s climate change work and publications go to:
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/ClimateChange.html

Nasıl "Ekolojik İktisat"çı Olunur?

Faber, Malte (2007): How to be an Ecological Economist. University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics, Discussion Papers Series No. 454.

Abstract: To answer the question "How to be an Ecological Economist", we must start by defining the field of Ecological Economics. Mainstream Economics altogether lacks the concepts required to deal adequately with nature, justice and time. It was the absence of these three concepts in this otherwise great social science that led to the establishment of Ecological Economics. The interest in nature, justice and time is its defining characteristic. The main thesis of this paper is that our field is a fragile institution and that the professional existence of an ecological economist is no less fragile. However, this very fragility also represents freedom, scope for free thinking, conceptualising and research. Nevertheless, to be able to really use and in turn enjoy the full scope of this freedom, an ecological economist needs certain specific characteristics, in particular what is termed in the German philosophical tradition "Urteilskraft" and in English "power of judgement". A description of these characteristics is developed in this paper, providing an answer to the question “How to be an ecological economist?”

JEL-Classification: A 10; A 12; A13; B 10; Q 00; Q57, O40

Key words: ecological economics; mainstream economics; political economy; nature; justice; time; growth; power of judgement

Download: http://www.awi.uni-heidelberg.de/with2/Discussion%20papers/papers/dp454.pdf