Economie/écologie : l'impossible conjugaison?

Nach einem kurzen wissenschaftstheoretischem Einstieg zur prä-analystischen Vision der Ökologischen Ökonomik, präsentiert Bernd Siebenhüner die Kernideen der Theorieschule. Dabei grenzt er diese von der Umwelt- & Ressourcenökonomik ab und erläutert auch Unterschiede zur Neoklassik. Während dieser Einführung in die Ökologische Ökonomik erläutert Siebenhüner Begriffe wie planetare Grenzen, Nachhaltigkeit oder Thermodynamik. Dabei gebt er insbesondere auf die Leitvision „Komplementarität statt Substituierbarkeit“ ein und stellt diese den in Kontext von schwacher und starker Nachhaltigkeit. Im Anschluss präsentiert Siebenhüner die Debatten um Wachstum und Ökosystemleistungen in der Ökologischen Ökonomik.

Mainstream inflation theories in economics do little to explain the recent acceleration in price increases. The associated economic policy recommendations further increase the misery of low-income groups.

The last 15 years have seen extensive research into ecosystem service valuation (ESV), spurred by the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005 (Baveye, Baveye & Gowdy, 2016). Ecosystem services are defined as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, p.V). For example, ecosystems provide the service of sequestering carbon which helps regulate the climate. Valuation means giving ecosystems or their services a monetary price, for example researchers have estimated that the carbon sequestration services of the Mediterranean Sea is between 100 and 1500 million euros per year. The idea of ESV was a response to the overuse of natural resources and degradation of ecosystems, allegedly due to their undervaluation and exclusion from the monetary economy. ESV can be used (1) for policy decision-making, for example allocating funding to a reforestation project (2) for setting payments to people who increase ecosystem services, for example a farmer increasing the organic carbon content of their soil, and (3) for determining fees for people who degrade ecosystem services, for example a company that causes deforestation.

In this podcast, Amy Goodman and Juan González explore together with Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, inequality and the state of the U.S. economy. Topics they touch upon are capitalism, taxation, powerlessness of citizens and Joseph Stiglitz's book entitled People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age of Discontent.