The Relationship Between Economic Growth and Biodiversity Conservation:

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The Relationship Between Economic Growth and
Biodiversity Conservation
A Historical Review of the Ecological Economics
Perspective
The Center for the Advancement of the Steady
State Economy
Rob Dietz rob_dietz_at_steadystate.org 541-602-3097
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Timeline
1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 2050
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Definition Economic Growth

• Increase in the production and consumption of
  goods and services (typically expressed in terms
  of GDP)
• facilitated by increasing
• population
• per capita consumption
• Not the same as economic development

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Stop 1. Adam Smith, 1776 Glasgow, Scotland
World population 850 million World GDP 150
billion (1990 real int. )

• The Wealth of Nations
• Dont tamper with the market.
• Commodities demanded will be produced in right
  quantities.
• Increases in division of labor and wages will
  occur.
• Upward spiral of economic growth.

But there is a limit. In the long run,
population growth pushes wages down, natural
resources become increasingly scarce, and
division of labor approaches its limits. He even
predicts 200 years as the longest period of
growth, followed by stable population.
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Stop 2. Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, 1815
Cambridge and London, England
World population 1 billion World GDP 200
billion
New industrial technologies opened the door for
economic growth beyond what Adam Smith
perceived. Understanding of new problems with
growth scale and distribution.
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Stop 3. John Stuart Mill, 1848 London, England
World population 1.2 billion World GDP 360
billion
Economic production (the fruits of labor) is
dependent upon the laws of nature. Diminishing
productivity and scarcity of natural resources
are givens that determine output. Distribution
is completely separate from production. Once
something is produced, it can be distributed in
any number of ways.
the increase of wealth is not boundless. The
end of growth leads to a stationary state. The
stationary state of capital and wealth would
be a very considerable improvement on our present
condition.
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Stop 4. William Stanley Jevons1865
Manchester, England
World population 1.3 billion World GDP 450
billion
Studied energy and energy depletion (The Coal
Question) from the perspectives of physical
science and economics (trans-disciplinarity).
Jevons paradox increasing energy efficiency
lowers costs and leads to increased energy use
and resource scarcity.
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Stop 5. Thorstein Veblen, 1899 Chicago, USA
World population 1.6 billion World GDP 1,100
billion
Expansion of trans-disciplinarity
intellectually influenced by Charles Darwin,
Veblen applied the evolutionary perspective to
socio-economic issues.
Coined the term conspicuous consumption, and
attributed it to the instincts of emulation and
predation in an attempt to gain status.
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Stop 6. John Maynard Keynes1930 Cambridge,
England
World population 2 billion World GDP 2,300
billion
The economic problem (the struggle for
subsistence)
that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of
usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is
detestable We shall once more value ends above
means and prefer the good to the useful.
But beware! The time is not yet. For at least
another hundred years we must pretend to
ourselves that fair is foul and foul is fair
for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and
usury and precaution must be our gods for a
little longer still.
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Stop 7. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, 1971
Nashville, USA by way of Romania
World population 3.7 billion World GDP 12,000
billion
The Entropy Law and the Economic Process.
Useful (low-entropy) energy and materials are
dissipated in transformations that occur in
economic processes, and they return to the
environment as high-entropy wastes.
Only economists still put the cart before the
horse by claiming that the growing turmoil of
mankind can be eliminated if prices are right.
The truth is that only if our values are right
will prices also be so.
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Thermodynamics
First Law of Thermodynamics Conservation of
mass and energy. Second Law Entropy never
decreases in an isolated system.
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Stop 8. Herman Daly, 1980 Baton Rouge, USA
World population 4.5 billion World GDP 18,800
billion
Optimal scale
Just distribution
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Definition Uneconomic Growth
Growth of the macroeconomy that costs more than
it is worth.
Value ()
Quantity (units producedor consumed)
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Stop 9. AnnMari Jansson, Bob Costanza, Joan
Martinez-Alier, and other ISEE Founders 1990
International
World population 5.3 billion World GDP 27,500
billion

• Founding positions
• The human economy is embedded in nature, and
  economic processes are biological, physical, and
  chemical processes and transformations.
• Ecological economics is meeting place for
  researchers committed to environmental issues.
• Ecological economics requires trans-disciplinary
  work to describe economic processes in relation
  to physical reality.

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Growth Paradigm in Economics
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Stop 10. Us, 2008 Chattanooga, Tennessee
World population 6.7 billion World GDP 45,000
billion

• The ecological economics perspective is
  trans-disciplinary.
• Conservation biologists have front-row seats to
  witness the effects of economic growth on
  biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services.
  We have much to offer to the ecological
  economics perspective.
• Making strides see the increasing interest in
  the SSWG and WGEESS.

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Further Reading Daly, H. E. and J. Farley. 
2003.  Ecological economics principles and
applications.  Island Press, Washington,
DC. Heilbroner, Robert. 2008. The worldly
philosophers, 7th edition, Simon and Schuster,
New York, NY. Røpke, Inge.  2004.  The early
history of modern ecological economics. 
Ecological Economics 50(3-4)293-314. Røpke,
Inge.  2005.  Trends in the development of
ecological economics from the late 1980s to the
early 2000s.  Ecological Economics
55(2)262-290.
rob_dietz_at_steadystate.org 541-602-3097