Geog 3890: Ecological Economics
Instructor: Dr. Paul C. Sutton
http://mysite.du.edu/~psutton/Home.html
e-mail: psutton@du.edu
Office: Boettcher West 126
Department of Geography
University of Denver
Course Description (click
here for syllabus)
Ecological Economics is an emerging
transdisciplinary endeavor that reintegrates the natural and social sciences
toward the goal of developing a united understanding of natural and
human-dominated ecosystems and designing a sustainable and desirable future for
humans on a materially finite planet. In this course we start with a basic overview
and summary of the neo-classical economic perspective with a particular focus
on the recognized market failures of public goods, common property, and
externalities. The perspective of ecological economics consists of both
positive and normative approaches to scientific and social problems.
Positivistic elements of ecological economics insist that the laws of
thermodynamics hold for all natural and human systems. Normative elements of
ecological economics are inherent in contemporary ideas of the notion of
sustainability (e.g. distributional equity across space and through time). This
course builds on the seminal and contrasting ideas of Adam Smith, Thomas Robert
Malthus, and Charles Darwin as they pertain to a growing human population with
increasing levels of technology, energy throughput, and social complexity on a
planet with limited and finite resources. We begin with a reconceptualization
of economic theory by imposing scientific constraints (e.g. conservation of
mass and energy, the laws of thermodynamics, evolutionary theory etc.). Using
the ideas developed in this reconceptualization of economic theory we explore
the implications for international trade and myriad public policies associated
with the ethical, environmental, and economic aspects of sustainability.
Powerpoints for
Course Lab Exercises
Supplemental Miscellany
Seminal
Papers of Ecological Economics Web Sites related to Ecological
Economics