Synopses & Reviews
Conventional economics is increasingly criticized for failing to reflect the value of clean air and water, species diversity, and social and generational equity. By excluding biophysical and social reality from its analyses and equations, conventional economics seems ill-suited to address problems in a world characterized by increasing human impacts and decreasing natural resources. "Ecological Economics is an introductory-level textbook for an emerging paradigm that addresses this fundamental flaw in conventional economics. The book defines a revolutionary "transdiscipline" that incorporates insights from the biological, physical, and social sciences, and it offers a pedagogically complete examination of this exciting new field. The book provides students with a foundation in traditional neoclassical economic though, but places that foundation within a new interdisciplinary framework that embraces the linkages among economic growth, environmental degradation, and social inequity. An accompanying work-book is also available. While many books have been written on ecological economics, and several text-books describe basic concepts of the field, this is the only stand-alone textbook that offers a complete explanation of both theory and practice.
Review
"Revised second edition presents an introduction to the field of ecological economics and considers alternatives to the current economic goals of infinite growth and limitless material consumption."
About the Author
Joshua Farley is assistant professor in Community Development and Applied Economics and research assistant professor at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont. He is also on the faculty of the Center for Resource Management and Environmental Studies at the University of the West Indies in Barbados.
Herman E. Daly is professor at the University of Maryland, School of Public Affairs. From 1988 to 1994 he was senior economist in the environment department of the World Bank. Prior to 1988 he was Alumni Professor of Economics at Louisiana State University, where he taught economics for twenty years. His books include Steady-State Economics(Freeman, 1977; second edition, Island Press, 1991); For the Common Good(with John Cobb, Beacon, 1989), and Beyond Growth(Beacon, 1996). In 1996, he received the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the "alternative Nobel Prize."