Sustainable Development: Concepts, Rationalities and Strategies

✍ Scribed by Sylvie Faucheux, Martin O’Connor (auth.), Sylvie Faucheux, Martin O’Connor, Jan van der Straaten (eds.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 322
• Series: Economy & Environment 13
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

3 decision support techniques that do not depend exclusively on market incentives and monetary valuation. The World Conservation Strategy published by the mCN (1980) recognised the full dimensions of these problems, and introduced the concept of sustainable development, placing the emphasis on the exploitation of natural systems and the use of biological natural resources within limits so that the availability of these resources for use by future generations would not be jeopardised by the current use of them. At this time, the imposition of quotas and the definition of critical loads and environmental standards were suggested as the sorts of instruments necessary to cope with the problems of limited availability of environmental resources. Although the mCN publication did not obtain a high international profile, the idea of policy norms to respect critical loads has become quite widely accepted in the environmental policymaking of Western countries. This has often put the policy agencies in difficult situations. Polluting industries are inclined to argue that the critical loads are defined too restrictively. The complexity and time lags of ecological effects makes it hard to say exactly what constitutes a critical load beyond which there will be irreversible damage, and lobbying interests can play on these uncertainties to try and weaken the environmental standards. In addition, polluting industries can use the argument of negative impacts on "the economy" (particularly as regards employment and export prospects) to blackmail governments, regulatory agencies and the general public.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-vi
Sustainable Development: Concepts, Rationalities and Strategies....Pages 1-15
The Implications of Environmental Sustainability for Economic Growth....Pages 17-32
Ecological Distribution and Distributed Sustainability....Pages 33-56
Bioeconomic Conceptions and the Concept of Sustainable Development....Pages 57-68
Sustainable Development and Public Policy....Pages 69-83
The Political Economics of Sustainability....Pages 85-101
Rational Assumptions in Energy Scenarios....Pages 103-116
Short-Run and Long-Run Adjustment to Environmental Policy: A Neo-Austrian Approach....Pages 117-139
Sustainability and Structural Change....Pages 141-155
Sustainability Concepts and Total Economic Valuation....Pages 157-167
A Practical Sustainability Criterion When There is International Trade....Pages 169-194
How Strong is Weak Sustainability?....Pages 195-210
Sustainability Principles and Depreciation Estimates of Natural Capital in Brazil....Pages 211-226
Environmental Decision Making: A Comparison Between Cost-Benefit Analysis and Multicriteria Decision Aid....Pages 227-238
Sustainability, Uncertainty, and Intergenerational Fairness....Pages 239-257
Sustainable Development, Rationality and Time....Pages 259-276
Towards a Decision-Making Framework to Address Sustainable Development Issues....Pages 277-297
Sustainable Development and the Process of Justifying Choices in a Controversial Universe....Pages 299-317
Back Matter....Pages 319-325

✦ Subjects

Environmental Economics