Critically compare and contrast the idea of sustainable development with conventional neoclassical environmental economics

Résumé du document

The earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive effluents is finite. Its ability to provide for the growing number of people is finite. And we are fast approaching many of the earth's limits. Current economic practices cannot be continued without the risk that global systems will be damaged beyond repair.' This quote is taken from a declaration published in The Times, and which has been signed by 1,575 scientists, including 99 Nobel Prize winners. It shows that more than ten years ago, there were already great concerns about the level of sustainability of our global system. Where do we stand today?

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[...] But collective action highly depends on politics, SD goes beyond economics, and the real problem is that governments are insufficiently concerned and that people are naturally sceptical as a result of too frequent prophecies of doom round the corner. The result is that action is often taken later then would be optimal, in response to a serious crisis instead of being planned and preventive, which is the whole point of SD. Bibliography DALY H.E., ‘Toward some operational principles of sustainable development.', Ecological Economics, Vol.II GEORCESCU-ROGEN N., La Décroissance. Entropie, écologie, économie Paris : Le Sang de la Terre. [...]

[...] Their study shows that polluting emissions increase as average income increases until a limit, then those emissions start to decrease, drawing an inversed U-shaped curve, more commonly called the environmental Kuznets Curve[5], called after the name of an economist who tried to establish, in the 1950s a similar relationship between per capita income and social inequalities. Grossman and Krueger basically explain that as income reached a certain (comfortable) level, individuals pay more attention to the quality of the environment they live in and make more effort to protect it. [...]

[...] Critically compare and contrast the idea of sustainable development with conventional neoclassical environmental economics Earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive effluent is finite. Its ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. And we are fast approaching many of the Earth's limits. Current economic practices ( ) cannot be continued without the risk that global systems will be damaged beyond repair.'[1] This quote is taken from a declaration published in The Times and which has been signed by scientists, including 99 Nobel Prize winners. [...]

[...] A third and last rule is that the use of non renewable resources must be equal to the rate of their substitution by renewable ones. As opposed to the neoclassical concept of weak sustainability, ecologists think that natural capital and human capital are not totally (if at all) substitutable but they rather are complementary. This model, called the “strong sustainability” framework, lies on the necessity to maintain a constant stock of natural capital which will be handed down to future generations. [...]

[...] Daly[7], first of all, the extraction rate of natural renewable resources must not exceed the resources' regeneration rate. In economical terms, this idea is related to the concept of “Sustainable Yield”. The sustainable yield defines the correct rate of harvest for a renewable resource. Basically, no one should use a renewable resource at a rate of extraction (or use) greater than its capacity to regenerate. The stock of renewable resource must be kept (at least) constant. Ideally, for ecologists, we should harvest a renewable resource at its Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY). [...]