Economics and the Ecosystem

THE ESSAYS COLLECTED HERE ADDRESS THE MOST PROFOUND SET OF ISSUES HUMANITY HAS EVER FACED.

“This is the finest collection of essays I have seen on the imperative of living lightly on the planet and the need for a new economics to guide us.”
James Gustave Speth, former dean of Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

“In this extraordinary book, climate change and related issues are addressed from a critical perspective by a set of distinguished ecological economists and natural scientists. A most valuable contribution to a deep understanding of the environmental challenges with important insights on ways to deal with them.”
Osvaldo Néstor Feinstein, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

“From mass extinction to climate chaos, the world needs new ideas about how to build economies founded on principles of social justice and ecological sustainability. This book brings together some of the best thinkers to show what those alternatives might look like. It is essential reading for everyone."
Peter Newell, University of Sussex, author of Climate Capitalism

The economic common sense of the last half century blinded us to our collective environmental consequences as a species. But now natural scientists have, for some of us, opened our eyes to our dire situation. “Extinction Rebellion” and other new civil society and expert activist movements have begun to appear. Encouragingly, the young seem particularly attuned to the scale of the crisis they have been bequeathed. A call to sanity has been initiated. Are we sufficiently rational as a species to respond?

Science tells us that the ecological emergency requires a fundamental reorientation of how the global economy works. This requires a mass mobilization to an extent never previously seen outside of a war setting. However, as these essays explain, the very form and function of our political economies resist both recognizing the gravity of the situation and translating any recognition into concrete and immediate action.

The essays collected here are predominantly informed by an ecological economics perspective. As such, they are implicitly or explicitly critical of the theory and role of mainstream economics both in creating the emergency and now in hiding its existence. Especially at issue are mainstream concepts that are antithetical to recognizing environmental limits and to remaining within them.

Natural scientists tell us that if we make systemic changes now, it is likely that we can avoid the ultimate catastrophe. But this requires, beginning today, massive action in the public sphere, including fundamental changes in the way economics is taught each year to millions of the young in Economics 101.