The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union

Here is Wendell Berry's fine poem, which speaks about money, science, community, home - all the things embraced by the precautionary principle.

From the union of power and money,
from the union of power and secrecy,
from the union of government and science,
from the union of government and art,
from the union of science and money,
from the union of ambition and ignorance,
from the union of genius and war,
from the union of outer space and inner vacuity,
the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.

There is only one of him, but he goes.
He returns to the small country he calls home,
his own nation small enough to walk across.
He goes shadowy into the local woods,
and brightly into the local meadows and croplands.
He goes to the care of neighbors,
he goes into the care of neighbors.
He goes to the potluck supper, a dish from each house
for the hunger of every house.
He goes into the quiet of early mornings
of days when he is not going anywhere.

Calling his neighbours together into the sanctity of their lives
separate and together
in the one life of their commonwealth and home,
in their own nation small enough for a story
or song to travel across in an hour, he cries:

Come all ye conservatives and liberals
who want to conserve the good things and be free,
come away from the merchants of big answers,
whose hands are metalled with power;
from the union of anywhere and everywhere
by the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price
and the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price;
from the union of work and debt, work and despair;
from the wage-slavery of the helplessly well-employed.
From the union of self-gratification and self-annihilation,
secede into care for one another and for the good gifts of Heaven and Earth.

Come into the life of the body, the one body
granted to you in all the history of time.
Come into the body’s economy, its daily work,
and its replenishment at mealtimes and at night.
Come into the body’s thanksgiving, when it knows
and acknowledges itself a living soul.
Come into the dance of the community, joined
in a circle, hand in hand, the dance of the eternal
love of women and men for one another
and of neighbors and friends for one another.

Always disappearing, always returning,
calling his neighbors to return, to think again
of the care of flocks and herds, of gardens
and fields, of woodlots and forests and the uncut groves,
calling them separately and together, calling and calling,
he goes forever toward the long restful evening
and the croak of the night heron over the river at dark.

Source : http://www.sehn.org/iowa.html

Nature's Matrix : Linking Agriculture, Conservation and Food Sovereignty

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781844077823/

Landscapes are frequently seen as fragments of natural habitat surrounded by a 'sea' of agriculture. But recent ecological theory shows that the nature of these fragments is not nearly as important for conservation as is the nature of the matrix of agriculture that surrounds them. Local extinctions from conservation fragments are inevitable and must be balanced by migrations if massive extinction is to be avoided. High migration rates only occur in what the authors refer to as 'high quality' matrices, which are created by alternative agroecological techniques, as opposed to the industrial monocultural model of agriculture. The authors argue that the only way to promote such high quality matrices is to work with rural social movements. Their ideas are at odds with the major trends of some of the large conservation organizations that emphasize targeted land purchases of protected areas. They argue that recent advances in ecological research make such a general approach anachronistic and call, rather, for solidarity with the small farmers around the world who are currently struggling to attain food sovereignty. Nature's Matrix proposes a radically new approach to the conservation of biodiversity based on recent advances in the science of ecology plus political realities, particularly in the world's tropical regions.

Ivette Perfecto is Professor of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan. John Vandermeer is Asa Gray University Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan. Angus Wright is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Studies at California State University Sacramento.

Resilience through Simplification : Revisiting Tainter’s Theory of Collapse

http://simplicitycollective.com/

A society or other institution can be destroyed by the cost of sustaining itself. — Joseph Tainter

In 1988 Joseph Tainter published his seminal work, The Collapse of Complex Societies, in which he presented an original theory of social complexity that he offered as the best explanation for the collapse of civilisations throughout history. Tainter’s theory essentially holds that human societies become more socially complex as they solve the problems they face, and while this complexity initially provides a net benefit to society, eventually the benefits derived from increasing complexity diminish and the relative costs begin to increase. There comes a point, Tainter argues, when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain the society, at which point further problems that arise cannot be solved and the society then enters a phase of deterioration or even rapid collapse. Not only is Tainter’s theory of historical interest, many believe it has implications for how we understand the world today.

One of the most challenging aspects of Tainter’s theory is how it reframes – one might even say revolutionises – sustainability discourse. Tainter argues that sustainability is about problem solving and that problem solving increases social complexity. But he also argues that social complexity requires energy and resources, and this implies that solving problems, including ecological problems, can actually demand increases in energy and resource consumption, not reductions. Indeed, Tainter maintains that sustainability is ‘not a passive consequence of having fewer human beings who consume more limited resources,’ as many argue it is; he even goes as far as to suggest that voluntary simplification by way of foregoing consumption may no longer be an option for industrial civilisation. Instead, Tainter’s conception of sustainability involves subsiding increased complexity with more energy and resources in order to solve ongoing problems.

While Tainter’s theory of social complexity has much to commend it, in a new paper (see link at top and bottom of this post) I examine and ultimately challenge Tainter’s conclusion that voluntary simplification is not a viable path to sustainability. In fact, I argue that it is by far our best bet, even if the odds do not provide grounds for much optimism. Moreover, should sustainability prove too ambitious a goal for industrial civilisation, I contend that simplification remains the most effective means of building ‘resilience’ (i.e. the ability of an individual or community to withstand societal or ecological shocks). While I accept that problem solving generally implies an increase in social complexity, the thesis I present is that there comes a point when complexity itself becomes a problem, at which point voluntary simplification, not further complexity, is the most appropriate response. Not only does industrial civilisation seem to be at such a point today, or well beyond it, I hope to show that voluntary simplification presents a viable and desirable option for responding to today’s converging social, economic, and ecological problems. This goes directly against Tainter’s conception of sustainability, while accepting much of his background theoretical framework.

Industrial civilisation is at a point in history when it is faced with the pressing issue of whether it can afford the problem of its own existence. Like a growing number of others, I do not believe that it can afford this, at least, not for much longer. The financial crisis currently plaguing the Eurozone (and elsewhere) is a barely disguised metaphor for this question of affordability, and it presents all of us living in industrial civilisation with the question of how best to respond to this problem. We are hardly the first to be faced with this problem; all previous civilisations have faced it. But perhaps we can be first, thanks to Joseph Tainter, to understand the dynamics at play. By embracing voluntary simplification, perhaps we can even respond in such a way as to avoid the collapse scenario that has marked the end of all other civilisations.

However, since voluntary simplification is unlikely to be widely embraced as a response to the problem of complexity, one hesitates before claiming that voluntary simplification will produce sustainability. While this sustainability scenario is still an option available for us, the odds of it being selected do not look promising at all. Nevertheless, voluntary simplification still remains the best strategy to adopt even if industrial civilisation continues to marginalise it. This is because if voluntary simplification is not embraced on a sufficiently wide scale to avoid social, economic, or ecological collapse, it nevertheless remains the most effective way for individuals and communities to build resilience, and in the current milieu, perhaps the ability to withstand forthcoming shocks is the best we can hope for.

The full report, ‘Resilience through Simplification,’ is available here (360kb PDF).

Dr. Samuel Alexander is co-director of the Simplicity Institute and a lecturer in ‘Consumerism and Sustainability’ at the Office for Environmental Programs, University of Melbourne. He also writes regularly at the Simplicity Collective and helped create The Simpler Way Project.

State of the World 2012 : Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity

http://islandpress.org/ip/books/book/islandpress/S/bo8634584.html

In the 2012 edition of its flagship report, Worldwatch celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit with a far-reaching analysis of progress toward building sustainable economies. Written in clear language with easy-to-read charts, State of the World 2012 offers a new perspective on what changes and policies will be necessary to make sustainability a permanent feature of the world's economies. The Worldwatch Institute has been named one of the top three environmental think tanks in the world by the University of Pennsylvania's Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program.
http://www.worldwatch.org/stateoftheworld2012

Lester Brown: Plan B 4.0 - Mobilizing to Save Civilization

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Plan-B-40/

"[Brown's] ability to make a complicated subject accessible to the general reader is remarkable."-Katherine Salant, Washington Post

As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B 4.0 explores both the nature of this transition to a new energy economy and how it will affect our daily lives.

Life Rules: Why so much is going wrong everywhere at once & how Life teaches us to fix it.

http://www.ellenlaconte.com/life-rules-the-book/

Economic and polar meltdowns, inept, corrupt and bankrupt governments, long-term double-digit unemployment, climate instability, failing social services, collapsing ecosystems, a widening wealth-poverty gap, unprecedented species extinctions, mass migrations, peak fossil fuels, religious, ethnic and resource wars, spreading hunger, poverty, chaos and disease. . .

Why is so much going wrong everywhere at once? The global economy has gone viral. It is ravaging Earth’s immune system, triggering a Critical Mass of mutually reinforcing environmental, economic, social, cultural and political crises that are compromising the ability of Earth’s human and natural communities to provide for, protect and heal themselves.

The prognosis? If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, Life will last but Life as we know it—and a lot of us—won’t.

What should we do instead? We should remember that Life rules, we don’t. The global economy operates as if it were larger than Life. It isn’t. As if it had multiple Earth’s to supply its appetites. It doesn’t. Life learned how to deal with global economies two billion years ago: It put them out of business. It encoded in other-than-human species an adaptable protocol of economic rules that help them to avoid causing Critical Mass and survive Critical Mass when it occurs naturally.

What are those rules? Among the rules written into Life’s Economic Survival Protocol are local self-reliance, intercommunity and regional functional cooperation, non-carbon energy sourcing, resource conservation, sharing and recycling, and organically democratic methods of self-organization and governance. These rules have worked for Life for two billion years. We can make them work for us, too.

How? We can learn Life’s rules and adopt lifeways that mimic Life’s ways.

Take back your future! A tool for community transition and cultural and personal transformation, Life Rules offers a clear and compelling context for understanding our global crisis and a treatment plan for Critical Mass that is at once authentically conserve-ative, deeply green and profoundly liberating.

With Forewords by John Robbins, Diet for A New America and The New Good Life & John Rensenbrink, publisher of Green Horizon Magazine AND an Afterword by August Jaccaci, General Periodicity: Nature’s Creative Dynamics

Dave Montgomery - Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Author David Montgomery has discovered that the three-foot-deep skin of our planet is slowly being eroded away, with potentially devastating results. In this engaging lecture, Montgomery draws from his book 'Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations' to trace the role of soil use and abuse in the history of societies, and discuss how the rise of organic and no-till farming bring hope for a new agricultural revolution.

Principios de Permacultura: Los principios de diseño de Holmgren

http://permacultureprinciples.com/es/

En su libro "Permaculture – Principles and pathways beyond sustanabiliy“, publicado en 2002, David Holmgren ofrece una evolución conceptual de permacultura, actualizada y adaptada a los desafíos del nuevo milenio.

Propone permacultura como instrumento para una transición productiva de una sociedad industrial de alto consumo energético hacia una cultura sostenible, para desarrollar una visión de adaptación creativa para un mundo, donde los recursos naturales y la energía serán cada vez más escasas.

A cada uno de estos doce principios de diseño dedica un capítulo entero (13)

1. Observar e interactuar

Observación cuidadosa de los procesos sistémicos e interacción consciente con los elementos del sistema. Descubrir „puntos de palanca“, para lograr el máximo efecto con mínima interferencia.

2. Captar y almacenar energía

Redescubrimiento e uso adecuado de los almacenes de energía, las cuales en todas las culturas preindustriales fueron patrimonios naturales esenciales para sobrevivencia: Agua, suelos, semillas y árboles. Una prioridad es la progresiva autonomía local y bioregional, para independizarse cada vez mas de los sistemas globalizados de alto consumo energético

3. Obtener un rendimiento

Si bién es importante la reconstrucción de capital natural para el futuro, tenemos que satisfacer también nuestras necesidades de ahora. Rendimiento, beneficio o ingresos funcionan como recompensa que anima mantenimiento y/o replicación del sistema que los generó (retroalimentación positiva).

4. Aplicar autorregulación y aceptar retroalimentación

Descubrir y utilizar procesos de autoregulación en los sistemas. Integrar el desarrollo de culturas y comportamientos sensibles a las señales de la naturaleza para prevenir la sobreexplotación (retroalimentación negativa).

5. Usar y valorar los recursos y servicios renovables

Uso cauteloso pero productivo de recursos renovables (sol, viento, agua, biomasa). Reducir el empleo de recursos no-renovables.

6. No producir desperdicios

Emplear „cascada“para evitar los desechos: Rechazar, reducir, reutilizar, reparar, reciclar.

7. Diseñar desde patrones hacia los detalles

Diseño exitoso necesita un entendimiento de los patrones „superiores“de la naturaleza. Los detalles planeados y deseados de un proyecto de permacultura toman en cuenta estos patrones y se desarrollan conforme a ellos.

8. Integrar más que segregar

Las relaciones entre los elementos son tan importantes como los elementos en sí mismos. Ubicarlos de modo que cada uno sirva las necesidades y acepte los productos de otros elementos. Co-operación de múltiples elementos en vez de eliminación de algunos y competencia entre ellos.

9. Utilizar soluciones lentas y pequeñas

Estrategias pequeñas y lentas mantienen los sistemas a escala humana y son más productivos a largo plazo que los proyectos grandes que necesitan de mucho tiempo, energía, y recursos.

10. Usar y valorar la diversidad

Uso, conservación y ampliación de la diversidad de elementos en los sistemas. Esto asegura su estabilidad y resiliencia (14), y hace posible su auto-organización a largo plazo.

11. Usar los bordes y valorar lo marginal

Descubrir la riqueza de los bordes/ límites entre los sistemas y usarlos productivamente

12. Usar y responder creativamente al cambio

Uso creativo de los ciclos, pulsos y procesos de sucesión naturales, para poder reaccionar a los desafíos del futuro adecuadamente.Wiki de Círculos de Estudio

Fonte: http://www.decrecimiento.info/

Earth in Our Care

Earth's social, environmental, and economic fabric is being threatened from all sides by such challenges as global warming, violence, poverty, and general environmental degradation due to unsustainable use of the Earth's resources. Nations in the West, whose economies became industrialized early, bear the brunt of responsibility for damage done to the environment so far. Nevertheless, as densely populated countries, like China, India, and Brazil, quickly transition to technology-based, consumer economies, demands for Earth's resources might reach a breaking point.

As Chris Maser puts it, fulfilling our obligation as environmental trustees—of Earth as a biological living trust—requires fundamental changes in our social consciousness and cultural norms. To meet these challenges, we need to fundamentally reframe our way of thinking. Instead of arbitrarily delineating our seamless world into discrete parts, we need a more holistic approach—one that acknowledges the interconnectedness of causes and effects, actions and consequences. Knowledge of systems is essential if we are to pass a habitable, healthy planet to future generations. Proper trusteeship is critical to maintaining the Earth's ability to produce, nourish, and maintain life. Without it, we risk becoming the authors of our own demise.

But what is systems thinking, and how can we harness it to put our planet on a sustainable course? Systems thinking goes to and deals with the root cause of a problem as opposed to symptomatic thinking, which deals with the world in piecemeal fashion. In this book, Maser reviews some of the factors that relate to the workings, services, and resilience of our planet—from nature's biophysical principles to the role of ignorance and knowledge, to the tradeoffs of every decision and action, to ever-changing landscape patterns, to the never-ending cycles of cause and effect, and so on. In doing so, he makes a unique and simultaneous use of both scientific and philosophical reasoning in articulating how the Earth works according to the immutable biophysical laws that govern it. The book goes beyond superficial recommendations, however, to call for self-conquest as a fundamental foundation for social-environmental sustainability, whereby individuals, acting locally, can change the world for the better by having been here.

Sustainability has become an increasingly urgent global imperative. With that goal in mind, Earth in Our Care opens a new chapter in our search for practical solutions to environmental problems, which must include changing the way we think—raising the level of our consciousness—about the Earth as a living system and our place in it.
Global Imperative

Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis

By Richard Heinberg

Coal fuels about fifty percent of US electricity production and provides a quarter of the country's total energy. China and India's ferocious economic growth is based on coal-generated electricity.

Coal currently looks like a solution to many of our fast-growing energy problems. However, while coal advocates are urging full steam ahead, increasing reliance on the dirtiest of all fossil fuels has crucial implications for climate science, energy policy, the world economy, and geopolitics.

Drawbacks to a coal-based energy strategy include: Scarcity--new studies prove that the peak of usable coal production may actually be less than two decades away. Cost--the quality of produced coal is declining, while the expense of transport is rising, leading to spiraling costs and potential shortages. Climate impacts--our ability to deal with the historic challenge of climate change may hinge on reducing our coal consumption in future years.

Blackout goes to the heart of the tough energy questions that will dominate every sphere of public policy throughout the first half of this century, and it is a must-read for planners, educators, and anyone concerned about energy consumption, peak oil, and climate change.

Adaptive Co-Management

Collaboration, Learning, and Multi-Level Governance

By Derek Armitage, Fikret Berkes and Nancy Doubleday

About the Book

In Canada and around the world, governments are shifting away from regulatory models for governing natural and cultural resources. New concerns with adaptive processes, feedback learning, and flexible partnerships are reshaping environmental governance. Meanwhile, ideas about collaboration and learning are converging around the idea of adaptive co-management.

This book provides a comprehensive synthesis of the core concepts, strategies, and tools in this emerging field, informed by a diverse group of researchers and practitioners with over two decades of experience. It also offers a diverse set of case studies that reveal the challenges and implications of adaptive co-management thinking and synthesizes lessons for natural and cultural resource governance in a wide range of contexts.

Adaptive Co-Management is not only a timely book but also a useful concept for resource governance in a world marked by rapid socio-ecological change. It will be of interest to researchers, environmental practitioners, policy-makers, and students in fields across the political and environmental spectrum.

The Natural Step for Communities

How Cities and Towns can Change to Sustainable Practices

By Sarah James and Torbjörn Lahti

Sustainability may seem like one more buzzword, and cities and towns like the last places to change, but The Natural Step for Communities provides inspiring examples of communities that have made dramatic changes toward sustainability, and explains how others can emulate their success.

Chronicled in the book are towns like Övertorneå, whose government operations recently became 100 per cent fossil fuel-free, demonstrating that unsustainable municipal practices really can be overhauled. Arguing that the process of introducing change -- whether converting to renewable energy or designing compact development -- is critical to success, the authors outline why well-intentioned proposals often fail to win community approval, and why an integrated approach -- not "single-issue" initiatives -- can surmount challenges of conflicting priorities, scarce resources, and turf battles.

The book first clarifies the concept of sustainability, offering guiding principles -- the Natural Step framework -- that help identify sustainable action in any area. It then introduces the sixty-plus eco-municipalities of Sweden that have adopted changes to sustainable practices throughout municipal policies and operations. The third section explains how they did it, and outlines how other communities in North America and elsewhere can do the same. Key to success is a democratic "bottom-up" change process, and clear guiding sustainability principles such as the Natural Step framework.

The book will appeal to both general readers wishing to understand better what sustainability means and practitioners interested in introducing or expanding sustainable development in their communities.

About the Contributor(s)

Sarah James is the principal of a city and town planning consulting firm specializing in participatory planning methods. She co-authored the American Planning Association's Planning for Sustainability Policy guide, and has published articles and given workshops throughout the United States on this subject.

Torbjörn Lahti is the project director for Sustainable Robertsfors, a five-year sustainable community demonstration project. He was the project planner for Sweden's first eco-municipality, Övertorneå, and was instrumental in the formation of SeKom, the Swedish national association of eco-municipalities.

Last Child in the Woods:

Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder

The recipient of the 2008 Audubon Medal, Richard Louv identified a phenomenon we all knew existed but couldn't quite articulate: nature-deficit disorder. Since its initial publication, his book Last Child in the Woods has created a national conversation about the disconnection between children and nature, and his message has galvanized an international movement. Now, three years later, we have reached a tipping point, with the book inspiring Leave No Child Inside initiatives throughout the country.

Hailed as "an absolute must-read" by the Boston Globe and "too tantalizing to ignore" by Audubon magazine, Last Child in the Woods is the inspiring work that proves children need nature as much as nature needs children.

An Overview of Last Child in the Woods

In this influential work about the staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation—he calls it nature-deficit—to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as the rises in obesity, attention disorders, and depression.

Last Child in the Woods is the first book to bring together a new and growing body of research indicating that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults. More than just raising an alarm, Louv offers practical solutions and simple ways to heal the broken bond—and many are right in our own backyard.

This new edition reflects the enormous changes that have taken place since the book was originally published. It includes:

• 100 actions you can take to create change in your community, school, and family.


• 35 discussion points to inspire people of all ages to talk about the importance of nature in their lives.


• A new progress report by the author about the growing Leave No Child Inside movement.


• New and updated research confirming that direct exposure to nature is essential for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.

Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder has spurred a national dialogue among educators, health professionals, parents, developers and conservationists. This is a book that will change the way you think about your future and the future of your children.

The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau

Thoreau's major essays annotated and introduced by one of our most vital intellectuals.

Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde

With The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau, Lewis Hyde gathers thirteen of Thoreau's finest short prose works and, for the first time in 150 years, presents them fully annotated and arranged in the order of their composition. This definitive edition includes Thoreau's most famous essays, "Civil Disobedience" and "Walking," along with lesser-known masterpieces such as "Wild Apples," "The Last Days of John Brown," and an account of his 1846 journey into the Maine wilderness to climb Mount Katahdin, an essay that ends on a unique note of sublimity and terror.

Hyde diverges from the long-standing and dubious editorial custom of separating Thoreau's politics from his interest in nature, a division that has always obscured the ways in which the two are constantly entwined. "Natural History of Massachusetts" begins not with fish and birds but with a dismissal of the political world, and "Slavery in Massachusetts" ends with a meditation on the water lilies blooming on the Concord River.

Thoreau's ideal reader was expected to be well versed in Greek and Latin, poetry and travel narrative, and politically engaged in current affairs. Hyde's detailed annotations clarify many of Thoreau's references and re-create the contemporary context wherein the nation's westward expansion was bringing to a head the racial tensions that would result in the Civil War.

Bio

Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. His 1983 book, The Gift, illuminates and defends the non-commercial portion of artistic practice. Trickster Makes This World (1998) uses a group of ancient myths to argue for the kind of disruptive intelligence all cultures need if they are to remain lively, flexible, and open to change. Hyde is currently at work on a book about our “cultural commons,” that vast store of ideas, inventions, and works of art that we have inherited from the past and continue to produce.

A MacArthur Fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde teaches during the fall semesters at Kenyon College, where he is the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing. During the rest of the year he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

The Thoreau Reader

The Crisis in Economics: The first 600 days

The Post-Autistic Economics Movement

edited by Edward Fullbrook

About the Book (Routledge)

Economics can be pretty boring. Drier than Death Valley, the discipline is obsessed with mathematics and compounds this by arrogantly assuming its techniques can be brought to bear on the other social sciences.

It wasn't going to be long, therefore, before students started complaining. The vast majority have voted with their feet and signed up for business and management degrees, but in the past two years there has grown an important new movement that has decided to tackle those who think they run economics head-on. This is the Post-autistic Economics Network.

The PAE Network started in France and has spread first to Cambridge and then other parts of the world. The name derives from the fact that mainstream economics has been accused of institutional autism, ie. qualitative impairment of social interaction, failure to develop peer relationships and lack of emotional and social reciprocity. In short, economics has lost touch with reality and has become way too abstract.

This book charts the impact the PAE Network has had so far and constitutes a manifesto for a different kind of economics - it features key contributions from all the major voices in heterodox economics including Tony Lawson, Deirdre McCloskey, Geoff Hodgson, Sheila Dow and Warren Samuels.

Real-world Economics Review

Reclaiming Nature

Environmental Justice and Ecological Restoration

Edited by James K. Boyce, Sunita Narain and Elizabeth A. Stanton

Reviews

‘A refreshing liberation from the alluring half-truths of conventional economics and public policy.’

- David Bollier, Editor, OntheCommons.org and author of ‘Silent Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth’

Description
In Reclaiming Nature, leading environmental thinkers from across the globe explore the relationship between the natural world and human activities. The authors draw inspiration and lessons from diverse experiences, from community-based fishery and forestry management to innovative strategies for combating global warming. They advance a compelling new vision of environmentalism, founded on the link between the struggle to reclaim nature and the struggle for social justice. This book advances three core propositions: First, humans can and do have positive as well as negative effects on the natural environment. By restoring degraded ecosystems and engaging in co-evolutionary processes, people can add value to nature’s wealth. Second, every person has an inalienable right to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment. These are not privileges to be awarded on the basis of political power, nor commodities to be allocated on the basis of purchasing power – they are fundamental human rights. Third, low-income communities are not the root of the problem. Rather they are the heart of the solution. In cities and the countryside across the world, ordinary people are forging a vibrant new environmentalism that is founded on defense of their lives and livelihoods.

About Authors, Editors, and Contributors

James K Boyce teaches in the fields of development economics and environmental economics and directs the Political Economy Research Institute's Program on Development, Peacebuilding, and the Environment at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the co-editor of Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership (Island Press, 2003), and editor of Economic Policy for Building Peace: Lessons of El Salvador (Lynne Rienner, 1996), an outcome of the Adjustment Toward Peace project which he coordinated on behalf of the United Nations Development Programme. PERI - Issue Guides

Sunita Narain is director of the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi.

Elizabeth A. Stanton is a researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University.

Toward A New Sustainable Economy

COUNTERCURRENTS.ORG

By Robert Costanza

The fallacy that economic growth can lead to improved human welfare underpins the global financial crisis. Now, we need to move beyond 'growth at all costs' and reorganise the economy based on the quality of life rather than quantity of consumption, argues Robert Costanza.

The current financial meltdown is the result of under-regulated markets built on an ideology of free market capitalism and unlimited economic growth. The fundamental problem is that the underlying assumptions of this ideology are not consistent with what we now know about the real state of the world. The financial world is, in essence, a set of markers for goods, services, and risks in the real world and when those markers are allowed to deviate too far from reality, "adjustments" must ultimately follow and crisis and panic can ensue.

To solve this and future financial crisis requires that we reconnect the markers with reality. What are our real assets and how valuable are they? To do this requires both a new vision of what the economy is and what it is for, proper and comprehensive accounting of real assets, and new institutions that use the market in its proper role of servant rather than master.

The mainstream vision of the economy is based on a number of assumptions that were created during a period when the world was still relatively empty of humans and their built infrastructure. In this "empty world" context, built capital was the limiting factor, while natural capital and social capital were abundant. It made sense, in that context, not to worry too much about environmental and social "externalities" since they could be assumed to be relatively small and ultimately solvable.

It made sense to focus on the growth of the market economy, as measured by GDP, as a primary means to improve human welfare. It made sense, in that context, to think of the economy as only marketed goods and services and to think of the goal as increasing the amount of these goods and services produced and consumed.

But the world has changed dramatically. We now live in a world relatively full of humans and their built capital infrastructure. In this new context, we have to first remember that the goal of the economy is to sustainably improve human well-being and quality of life.

We have to remember that material consumption and GDP are merely means to that end, not ends in themselves. We have to recognize, as both ancient wisdom and new psychological research tell us, that material consumption beyond real need can actually reduce well-being. We have to better understand what really does contribute to sustainable human well-being, and recognize the substantial contributions of natural and social capital, which are now the limiting factors in many countries. We have to be able to distinguish between real poverty in terms of low quality of life, and merely low monetary income.

Ultimately we have to create a new model of the economy and development that acknowledges this new full world context and vision.

This new model of development would be based clearly on the goal of sustainable human well-being. It would use measures of progress that clearly acknowledge this goal. It would acknowledge the importance of ecological sustainability, social fairness, and real economic efficiency. Ecological sustainability implies recognizing that natural and social capital are not infinitely substitutable for built and human capital, and that real biophysical limits exist to the expansion of the market economy.

Social fairness implies recognizing that the distribution of wealth is an important determinant of social capital and quality of life. The conventional model has bought into the assumption that the best way to improve welfare is through growth in marketed consumption as measured by GDP. This focus on growth has not improved overall societal welfare and explicit attention to distribution issues is sorely needed.

As Robert Frank has argued in his latest book: Falling Behind: How Rising Inequality Harms the Middle Class, economic growth beyond a certain point sets up a "positional arms race" that changes the consumption context and forces everyone to consume too much of positional goods (like houses and cars) at the expense of non-marketed, non-positional goods and services from natural and social capital.

For example, this drive to consume more positional goods leads people to reach beyond their means to purchase ever larger and more expensive houses, fueling the housing bubble. It also fuels increasing inequality of income which actually reduces overall societal well-being, not just for the poor, but across the income spectrum.

Real economic efficiency implies including all resources that affect sustainable human well-being in the allocation system, not just marketed goods and services. Our current market allocation system excludes most non-marketed natural and social capital assets and services that are critical contributors to human well-being. The current economic model ignores this and therefore does not achieve real economic efficiency. A new, sustainable ecological economic model would measure and include the contributions of natural and social capital and could better approximate real economic efficiency.

The new model would also acknowledge that a complex range of property rights regimes are necessary to adequately manage the full range of resources that contribute to human well-being. For example, most natural and social capital assets are public goods. Making them private property does not work well. On the other hand, leaving them as open access resources (with no property rights) does not work well either. What is needed is a third way to propertize these resources without privatizing them. Several new (and old) common property rights systems have been proposed to achieve this goal, including various forms of common property trusts.

The role of government also needs to be reinvented. In addition to government's role in regulating and policing the private market economy, it has a significant role to play in expanding the "commons sector", that can propertize and manage non-marketed natural and social capital assets. It also has a major role as facilitator of societal development of a shared vision of what a sustainable and desirable future would look like. As Tom Prugh, myself, and Herman Daly have argued in our book "The Local Politics of Global Sustainability," strong democracy based on developing a shared vision is an essential prerequisite to building a sustainable and desirable future.

The long term solution to the financial crisis is therefore to move beyond the "growth at all costs" economic model to a model that recognizes the real costs and benefits of growth. We can break our addiction to fossil fuels, over-consumption, and the current economic model and create a more sustainable and desirable future that focuses on quality of life rather than merely quantity of consumption.

It will not be easy; it will require a new vision, new measures, and new institutions. It will require a redesign of our entire society. But it is not a sacrifice of quality of life to break this addiction. Quite the contrary, it is a sacrifice not to.

Robert Costanza, Ph.D, is Gordon and Lulie Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and Director, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, The University of Vermont. He can be contacted at: Robert.Costanza@uvm.edu

Post-Autistic Economics Network

Real-world Economics Review

Resilience, Reciprocity and Ecological Economics

Northwest Coast Sustainability

Ronald Trosper, Associate Professor, Department of Forest Resources Management, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia

About the Book
How did one group of indigenous societies, on the Northwest Coast of North America, manage to live sustainably with their ecosystems for over two thousand years? Can the answer to this question inform the current debate about sustainability in today’s social ecological systems?

The answer to the first question involves identification of the key institutions that characterized those societies. It also involves explaining why these institutions, through their interactions with each other and with the non-human components, provided both sustainability and its necessary corollary, resilience.

Answering the second question involves investigating ways in which key features of today’s social ecological systems can be changed to move toward sustainability, using some of the rules that proved successful on the Northwest Coast of North America.

Ronald L. Trosper shows how human systems connect environmental ethics and sustainable ecological practices through institutions.

Table of Contents
1. Sustainability Needs Tested Ideas from the Pacific Northwest, 2. Why it is So Difficult to Learn from Aboriginal North America, 3. A Partial Policy Framework Already Exists, 4. Gifts: Indian Giving Creates Consumption Connections to Mirror Ecosystem Connections 5. Chiefs: Empower Generous Facilitators to Resolve Conflicts, 6. Contingency: Community limits on Individual Behavior Promote Resilience, 7. Comparison of indigenous and industrial salmon management, 8. Relicensing of Kerr Dam on the Flathead Indian Reservation, 9: Nisga’a Nation and Treaty, 10: Dams and Salmon on the Lower Snake River, 11. The NW System Encourages Adaptive Management

Series: Routledge Studies in Ecological Economics

Beyond Growth:

The Economics of Sustainable Development

by Herman E. Daly

Synopsis

Named one of a hundred "visionaries who could change your life" by the Utne Reader, Herman Daly has probably been the most prominent advocate of the need for a change in economic thinking in response to environmental crisis. An iconoclast economis t who has worked as a renegade insider at the World Bank in recent years, Daly has argued for overturning some basic economic assumptions. He has won a wide and growing reputation among a wide array of environmentalists, inside and outside the academy.

In a book that will generate controversy, Daly turns his attention to the major environmental debate surrounding "sustainable development." Daly argues that the idea of sustainable development--which has become a catchword of environmentalism and international finance--is being used in ways that are vacuous, certainly wrong, and probably dangerous. The necessary solutions turn out to be much more radical than people suppose.

This is a crucial updating of a major economist's work, and mandatory reading for people engaged in the debates about the environment.

"Daly is turning economics inside out by putting the earth and its diminishing natural resources at the center of the field . . . a kind of reverse Copernican revolution in economics."

--Utne Reader

Introduction to Ecological Economics

Genetic and Cultural Evolution of Cooperation

MIT Press
Edited by Peter Hammerstein

Current thinking in evolutionary biology holds that competition among individuals is the key to understanding natural selection. When competition exists, it is obvious that conflict arises; the emergence of cooperation, however, is less straightforward and calls for in-depth analysis. Much research is now focused on defining and expanding the evolutionary models of cooperation. Understanding the mechanisms of cooperation has relevance for fields other than biology. Anthropology, economics, mathematics, political science, primatology, and psychology are adopting the evolutionary approach and developing analogies based on it. Similarly, biologists use elements of economic game theory and analyze cooperation in "evolutionary games." Despite this, exchanges between researchers in these different disciplines have been limited. Seeking to fill this gap, the 90th Dahlem Workshop was convened. This book, which grew out of that meeting, addresses such topics as emotions in human cooperation, reciprocity, biological markets, cooperation and conflict in multicellularity, genomic and intercellular cooperation, the origins of human cooperation, and the cultural evolution of cooperation; the emphasis is on open questions and future research areas. The book makes a significant contribution to a growing process of interdisciplinary cross-fertilization on this issue.

Table of Contents

About the Editor

Peter Hammerstein is Professor in Organismic Evolution at the Institute for Theoretical Biology at Humboldt University, Berlin and an external member of the interdisciplinary Santa Fe Institute.