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Hi A.J., thanks for the extensive feedback and welcome to the blog!

I have so far not reviewed cli-fi, though I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I have catalogued a very limited number of such books for my daytime job, so I’m aware the genre exists, but not much beyond that.

You make some excellent observations. I’m not on the inside of ecological economics, but my impression is that Erickson is a force trying to resist such convergence. I’m not surprised by what you say, though, we have seen time and time again that capitalism excels at packaging up criticism and selling it back to us.

Tipping points are indeed a good example of the things we didn’t know we didn’t know, capable of sending any model careening off a cliff. I have long felt that, until we quantify just by how much consumption would need to reduce, models and promises are easy to make. I was quite excited, therefore, reviewing Planetary Accounting (/2020/10/14/book-review-planetary-accounting-quantifying-how-to-live-within-planetary-limits-at-different-scales-of-human-activity/) some years ago, though even that was still baby steps. My gut feeling? We’re not going to like the outcome of such an exercise in the developed world. That starts verging into the question of how degrowth (even as a transition) can be achieved. For that I really want to read some books first… as soon as I have other things on my to-review list out of the way.

As to your point about steady-state economics. Absolutely. If we really want to be serious about long-term “sustainability” and continuing to exist as a species for thousands of generations to come, then very little of what we do today is really sustainable, as most of it uses up finite resources. I don’t claim to have the answers but have wondered what, beyond–wood, earth, and various animal and plant-derived substances–really regenerates on a human time-scale. And before anyone assumes I suggest we head back to the proverbial caves: various books I have reviewed over the years that talk about the potential of biotechnological approaches using microbes, algae, and other fast-growing organisms (fungi?) tell me that there will be plenty of need for human ingenuity. Whether we can turn to such solutions without them being coopted by profit motives… the biggest challenge ahead might well be changing our values and attitudes (the book I just finished reading, Alfie & Me, was a timely reminder of this).

Anyway, that’s enough of me freestyle-ranting on a Sunday morning. I hope you will enjoy exploring the blog!

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Concerning ecological economics, unfortunately over the last decade or two it’s been converging with (neoclassical) environmental economics in certain respects. For example, by adopting the approach of “ecosystem services” and “natural capital,” EcolEcon has shifted to the same anthropocentric point of view as EnvEcon. Non-human creatures (by which I mean both animals and plants) aren’t appreciated for themselves or their own dignity, but only in terms of “what have they done for us lately.” So EcolEcon, at least at present, doesn’t quite live up to the ethical hopes one might have had for it.

Your point about population and Raworth is spot on. Obviously the inner circle of her doughnut — the minimum resources needed to provide a social floor for the human population — would be a pinhole if the world’s population were, say 1,000,000 people. She doesn’t consider that maybe a thickened 3-D trumpet bell is a better metaphor than a 2-D doughnut, with the axis of the bell being population. (Her model also doesn’t consider tipping points/hysteresis: if we’re say, 2 cm beyond the ecological ceiling as her doughnut appears on a printed page, that doesn’t necessarily mean we can just reduce resource use by 2 cm’s worth to being things back to normal. If we’re beyond a tipping point, the magnitude of our action might need to be much bigger.)

One more issue that EcolEcon doesn’t really confront is epistemic. According to Daly, a “steady-state” economy maintains a constant stock of natural wealth and a constant population. Since we have to have an outflow of natural wealth as the raw materials for our life, we need an equal inflow of natural resources to maintain the stock. The problem is, we don’t really know what resources we’re using, because we just don’t know that much about our planet.

An example is the state of our knowledge at the time of the 1992 Rio Convention on Climate Change. At that time, relatively few people were aware of marine viruses and how abundant they are (first published ca. 1990). Their role in biogeochemical cycles and processes such as cloud formation wasn’t clarified until later in the ’90s and into the ’00s. Obviously the 1992 Convention didn’t consider marine viruses or how human actions might impact the viruses’ protective effects for all life, including us. So any steady-state theory is based on a certain arrogance about how well we understand how the planet works. EcolEcon is a start, but it’s not enough of a rupture from the attitudes of conventional economics

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At the same time, in accord with such recogition, even from the ranks of the neoclassically-trained economists, in addition to “degrowth”, there should be more attention to previously side-lined heterodox theories such as dependency theory or world-systems theory. What needs to be addressed are also the international financial institutions – that since 1945 have dictated the rules of the current economic system. In particular how a just green transition cannot be achieved withouth placing the Global South at the core of remaking the global financial and economic system that has brought us to where we are.

So we need – in the words of Daniela Gabor and Ndongo Samba Sylla – a new “Bandung Woods” not a new Washington Consensus.

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Thanks Tania, your struggles with economy very much describe Erickson’s experience as a student.

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