Hannes R. Stephan
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:29:43 -0700
Oops... I got the conclusion of the article completely wrong, of course. The new motto, according to Alcott, should be: Think global, act global. Hannes Hannes R. Stephan wrote:
Hi,a quick rejoinder to the points made about the 'rebound' effect. There is a recent article by Blake Alcott in Ecological Economics (Vol. 64, 2008, pp.770-786) where he sort of takes this effect for granted and then widens the critique to include the sufficiency literature.As the title suggests (The sufficiency strategy: Would rich-world frugality lower environmental impact?), he argues that frugality itself leads to another rebound effect, whereby raw materials become cheaper on the world market and other consumers pick up the slack. Alcott's conclusion is that the new motto should be: Think local, act local.Perhaps not radically new, but an interesting analysis.......and yet another 'rebound effect' to think about.Cheers, Hannes
-- -------------------------------------- Hannes R. Stephan PhD Candidate School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment (SPIRE) Keele University, U.K.