Economical Development and Environment Protection:An Ecological Economics Perspective
This paper argues on both theoretical and empirical grounds that, beyond a certain point, there is an unavoidable conflict between economic development and environmental protection.Think for a moment of natural forests, grasslands, marine estuaries, salt marshes, and coral reefs; and of arable soils, aquifers, mineral deposits, petroleum, and coal.These are all forms of natural capital that represent highly-ordered self-producing ecosystems or rich accumulations of energy/matter with high use potential (low entropy).Now contemplate despoiled landscapes, eroding farmlands, depleted fisheries, anthropogenic greenhouse gases, acid rain, poisonous mine tailings and toxic synthetic compounds.These all represent disordered systems or degraded forms of energy and matter with little use potential (high entropy).The main thing connecting these two states is human economic activity.Ecological economics interprets the environment-economy relationship in terms of the second law of thermodynamics.The second law sees economic activity as a dissipative process.From this perspective, the production of economic goods and services invariably requires the consumption of available energy and matter.To grow and develop, the economy necessarily feeds on sources of high-quality energy/matter first produced by nature.This tends to disorder and homogenize the ecosphere, The ascendance of humankind has consistently been accompanied by an accelerating rate of ecological degradation, particularly biodiversity loss, the simplification of natural systems and pollution.In short, contemporary political rhetoric to the contrary, the prevailing growth-oriented global development paradigm is fundamentally incompatible with long-term ecological and social sustainability.
Ecological crisis Ecological economics Natural capital Steady-state Social capital Sustainability
WANG Jixia
School of Economics,University of Jinan,Jinan,P.R.China,250022
国际会议
The 3rd(2013) International Academic Seminar of SoftPower(第三届国际软实力学术研讨会)
济南
英文
234-238
2013-10-18（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）