GEOG 352: Day 4 Finishing Up Notes and Discussion

Housekeeping Items We will finish the slides from last time, and sign more people up for leading discussions. I also wanted to tell you about two additional books not on the resource list: Occupy Money: Creating an Economy Where Everyone Wins by Margrit Kennedy and Life Rules: Nature’s Blueprint for Surviving Economic and Environmental Collapse – both from New Society Publishers, Another possible case study topic could be an example of ecotourism that maintains natural and cultural capital, while providing jobs. How many have seen The Story of Stuff? If not, your homework is to watch it ( and be prepared to discuss it if we have time.

Housekeeping Items If you are having difficulty with terms, consult the book’s glossary starting on p We’ll try the video link again that Eder recommended: Both Suzuki and Eder pointed out that ecology and economy come from the same root work in Greek: oikonomia, which means management of the household. Ecologists have come to use it in the sense of management of the Earth’s household. Ancient Greek philosophers made a distinction between a moral economy that considered ethical ends (oikonomia) and crass and immoral money- making (chrematistics).

Housekeeping Items Renee and Deanna agreed to lead discussions today, and I need to sign up more people (I brought a sign-up sheet for that purpose). Renee will be addressing the issue of: what is the difference between growth, throughput, and development [again the idea here is merely to kick-start and guide a discussion], and Deanna will address the strengths and weaknesses of the three strategies for integrating ecology and the economy. Someone volunteered to lead a discussion on the different aspects of natural capital and that would be good for next week. We also need someone on the distinction between stock-flow and fund-service resources.

Three Strategies for Integrating Economy and Ecology Economic imperialism: the standard economic view. Ecological reductionism: what does this refer to and what are some examples of it? Steady-state economy that respects natural limits. What is the role of the discount rate in all this – how do we value future resources and ecological health against current high-consumption lifestyles? Nicholas Stern, the British economist, wrote a major report that said that unchecked climate change would be a human and economic catastrophe, and said that 1% of global GNP would be enough to address the problem, but other economists said this was too high a price to pay.