5 research outputs found
Sustainability, economic restructuring and social change
In what could perhaps be referred to as the postmodernist mother of
fiction - the novel 'Haroun and the sea of stories' - Salman
Rushdie at one point puts his main character Haroun in a mail coach
driven by a Mr Butt, on a rocky, windy, slippery road high up in the
mountains, trying to reach a certain point before sunset. Faster and
faster the bus goes, no longer stopping even to collect or deposit mail,
frightening the passengers, but Mr Butt disregards their howls. Then
Mr Butt sees another dangerous bit of road ahead and exclaims: 'The
snow line! Icy patches ahead! Crumbling road surface! Hairpin bends!
Danger of avalanches! ... ' and quite contrary to what Haroun had hoped,
Mr Butt then turns his observations into a possibly fatal conclusion by
shouting to himself: 'Full speed ahead' (Rushdie, p.36). I tell this story
- which, incidentally, has a happy ending - because I regard Mr
Butt's attitude as illustrative of the archetypical mainstream economist's
response to almost any problem he or she may be confronted.
with: they are very likely to conclude their analysis by recommending
more economic growth - to develop at full speed. In a context of trying
to contribute to sustainable development from a social science perspective,
I think there is much more - if not much else - to say. We should
learn from the warning on the wall near the exit of the bus station where
Haroun read:
If from speed (read: growth - JBO) you get your thrill,
Take precaution - make your will
This inaugural address marks my passage from the domain of environmental
economics to the wider one of development studies, and the
bridge between the two is called 'sustainable development'
Environment and Poverty
This paper reviews what insights environmental and ecological economics have provided regarding the 'poverty-environment'- nexus within
the 'EnvironmentDevelopment'-system. Various perspectives are discussed, such as 'the poor as agents' and 'the poor as victims' hypotheses,
(a) institutions oriented approaches, (b) livelihood based analyses, (c) capabilities frameworks, (d) rights-oriented approaches, (e) pricing of environmental services (PES).
Policies forwarded at the international level are discussed. Some of the new perspectives identified are beginning to penetrate into these proposals. The validity of PES as an overall recipe to dealing with the nexus is examined critically