1. Ecological Economics Lecture 01 Syllabus for 2010-11 Tiago Domingos Assistant Professor Environment and Energy Scientific Area Department of Mechanical Engineering tdomingos@ist.utl.pt Doctoral Program and Advanced Degree in Sustainable Energy Systems Doctoral Program in Mechanical Engineering Doctoral Program in Environmental Engineering https://fenix.ist.utl.pt/disciplinas/ee/2010-2011/2-semestre

2. Main Issues in Ecological Economics Ecological Economics: The science of sustainable development Scale –Ecology; –Environmental dimension of sustainability Distribution –Ethics and Sociology; –Social dimension of sustainability (Allocative) Efficiency –Economics; –Economic dimension of sustainability Constraints –Thermodynamics

3. Value and Indicators Economic –Valuation techniques –National Accounting and Macroeconomic Variables –Genuine Savings –Green Net National Product Social –Human Development Index –Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare –Gini coefficient Biophysical –Ecological Footprint –Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production Multi-criteria analysis

4. Ecological Economics in Space and Time Theories of growth and sustainable development –Solow growth model –Ayres’s theory of growth –Growth accounting –Weak vs. strong sustainability –Economy and environment in a historical perspective The network dimension: direct vs. indirect effects –Life Cycle Assessment –Input-Output Analysis –Computable General Equilibrium Models The temporal and spatial dimensions –Inflation rate and discount rate –Exchange rate and purchasing power parity

5. Assessment Groups of 2 students with bi-weekly assignments: –Problem sets –Small projects

6. Uncertainty Knowns Deterministic problems Known unknowns Stochastic problems (risk) Unknown unknowns True uncertainty Dealing with uncertainty –Adaptive management http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/adaptive_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-armed_bandit –Resilience http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/resilience –Precautionary principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle