Themester Event 9/30

Redefining Prosperity: The Economics of Sustainability
Heather Reynolds Department of Biology

This talk, presented by Heather Reynolds was part of the themester lecture series. The lecture was broken into three distinct sections; "Conventional Economics and Prosperity as Growth", "Abundance or Limits", and "Ecological Economics and Redefining Prosperity". In discussing conventional economics, and prosperity as growth, Reynolds emphasized limits to growth and highlighted weaknesses to the conceptual and conventional economic model currently in use; such as a lack of equity, ignoring non-monetary aspects of life (such as natural, human, and social capital), and the model does not take into account external costs such as environmental depletion and degradation. The points that were raised here were interesting because they mirrored the concepts of capital which we discussed from the Roseland readings, and pointed out similar weaknesses to conventional economic theory which were discussed in class.

The abundance or limits to our current patters of consumption discussed ideas such as; The Next Industrial Revolution, causes and impacts of invasive species, the impact and function of natural and human capital, ecological footprint, and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment put together by the United Nations. This section of the lecture focused on more issues with the current way we as a society look at being prosperous and how we have made detrimental impacts to our planet in the efforts to be prosperous in growth and development.



In discussing ecological economics and redefining prosperity Reynolds how we should be concerned with appropriate sustainable economic scale of growth. She proposes that to achieve sustainable development we must adopt/strive for a steady state economy, where in growth is not beyond the Earth's capacity and we "must thrive within our means". She argues that growth and development are inherently very different, where in growth is a quantifiable aspect, and development is a qualitative aspect. Therefore, development does not have to be growth and our society can be developing in a more sustainable manner. One example of this which she provided was for transportation, building/construction of new roads would be growth, where as increasing public transportation would be development, which in this example is far more sustainable. Other examples would be expanding size and distribution of a food processing center would be growth, where as creating more community based agriculture is development.

In concluding her lecture, Reynolds espoused the efforts of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, whose mission states that "Perpetual economic growth is neither possible nor desirable. Growth, especially in wealthy nations, is already causing more problems than it solves."