Dear Colleagues,
ESA members may have noticed that ESA is soliciting feedback from its
members on a draft position statement on economic growth. As ESA
notes, the draft was developed by 2 environmental economists and a
mathematical ecologist.
To date, only a handful of professional societies have issued these
sorts of statements (for a list, see http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEPositionOnEG.html)
. ESA thus deserves a great deal of credit for taking on such a
complex issue.
The draft statement strongly reflects an environmental economist point
of view. There is another field of economics, called ecological
economics. There are fairly strong distinctions between environmental
vs. ecological economists, although there are certainly many areas of
agreement (e.g. the importance, where possible, of internalizing
environmental externalities).
Ecological economists are careful to distinguish economic growth from
economic development. This Encyclopedia of Earth entry: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Steady_state_economy
by recognized expert Brian Czech discusses the distinction between
economic growth and economic development.
Other well known ecological economists include Robert Constanza and
Herman Daly.
I hope that ESA will continue to work on this position statement and
will actively seek the input of ecological economists.
Heather Reynolds
Associate Professor
Department of Biology
Jordan Hall 142
Indiana University
1001 E 3rd Street
Bloomington IN 47405
Ph: (812) 855-0792
Fax: (812) 855-6705
[email protected]
