Sharon Beder

The role of technology in sustainable development

The inability of governments represented at the 1992 Earth Summit to reach a consensus on reducing either population growth or consumption, and the political need for the concept of sustainable development to accommodate economic growth, mean that the achievement of sustainable development will depend on our ability to reduce the environmental impact of resource use through technological change. This will require the redesign of our technological systems and not merely the application of technological fixes that are seldom satisfactory in the long term. Past attempts by the appropriate technology movement to affect such a redesign neglected the social dimensions of technological change. Modern advocates of sustainable development will similarly fail unless they recognize the need for fundamental social change and a shift in priorities.<<ETX>>

Charging the earth: The promotion of price-based measures for pollution control

Abstract This paper seeks to consider the ways in which the theory and application of economic instruments, in particular price-based instruments, is shaped by the interests, values and ideologies of those who are promoting and implementing them. Although economists have been advocating the use of economic instruments for pollution control for decades, it is only in recent years that they have been embraced by business groups and governments looking for a way to avoid stricter and more costly regulations that might inhibit economic growth, and as a way of correcting, and therefore preserving the free-market system. This paper examines the rationale for price-based instruments and explains how economists have managed to enroll the support of other interest groups, even those that have conflicting interests.

Environmental principles and policies : an interdisciplinary introduction

Introduction * Part I: Environmental Protection Principles * The Sustainability Principle * The Polluter Pays Principle * The Precautionary Principle * Part II: Social Principles and Environmental Protection * The Equity Principle * Human Rights Principle * The Participation Principle * Part III: Economic Methods of Environmental Valuation * Measuring Environmental Value * Is Monetary Valuation Principled? * Part IV: Economic Instruments for Pollution Control * Prices and Pollution Rights * The Sustainability Principle and Economic Instruments * The Polluter Pays and Precautionary Principles Applied * Rights, Equity and Participation Principles Applied * Part V: Markets for Conservation * Quotas, Trades, Offsets and Banks * The Sustainability Principle and Conservation Markets * The Equity, Participation and Precautionary Principles Applied * Conclusion *

Neoliberal Think Tanks and Free Market Environmentalism

Corporate-funded think tanks have played a central role in promoting free market environmentalism onto the policy agenda throughout the English speaking world. These think tanks have consistently opposed government regulation and advocated the virtues of a ‘free’ market unconstrained by a burden of red tape. The role of think tanks in the establishment of this ‘neoliberal’ agenda in the US and the UK in recent decades has been well documented.

Environmental economics and ecological economics: the contribution of interdisciplinarity to understanding, influence and effectiveness

SUMMARY This paper reviews developments in both environmental economics and ecological economics with respect to their progress towards environmental interdisciplinarity and towards providing solutions to environmental problems. The concepts, methods, theories and assumptions of each field of knowledge are reviewed and the extent to which they depart from the dominant neoclassical paradigm of economics is assessed. The contribution that interdisciplinarity has made to the success of each field is analysed in terms of understanding, influence and effectiveness and the constraints that it has imposed upon that success. Environmental economics has adopted the dominant economic neoclassical paradigm, including the power of the market to allocate environmental

The Right Way to Go? Earth Sanctuaries and Market-based Conservation

During the 1970s and 80s, business and right-wing interests promoted a combination of neoclassical economic theories and economic, or market, liberalism that consisted of a basic policy formula involving small government and a greater role for the market. It emphasized the need for less government intervention, privatization of government services and assets, and deregulation of business activities, all in the name of free markets, competitiveness, efficiency and economic growth.

Business-managed democracy : the trade agenda

The architecture of global governance that has emerged in the past two decades has been strongly influenced by transnational policy actors. This article examines the role of transnational corporate agency in social policy by focusing in particular on the role of business coalitions, elite networking bodies and policy planning groups in fostering unity amongst corporate actors and enrolling political actors into managing democracies in the interests of business. The example of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) is used to examine how corporate agency is wielded through elite networking organizations and how this is eroding national social policy.

Ecofeminism and Globalisation: A Critical Appraisal

Ecofeminism offers a useful yet limited framework through which to critique globalisation. Ecofeminism claims that the domination of women and of nature are intrinsically linked. Material ecofeminists, in particular, focus on the material conditions of womens lives locating the source of this twin domination in patriarchal capitalism. These ecofeminists provide insights into the impacts of globalisation on women but their analysis of the causes of globalisation are limited. They identify globalisation as an outgrowth of patriarchal capitalism, insisting on the primacy of gender as the determinant of social organisation and arguing that it is the dichotomy between production and reproduction that essentially defines capitalism. However, the rise of modern capitalism has been more convincingly described by those who focus on the domination of workers, the role of the market economy, and the enrolment of all sections of society through the propagation of the work ethic and the allure of consumerism.

Engineers, Ethics and Sustainable Development

Most engineering codes of ethics worldwide exhort engineers to consciously put the public interest above all others. This seems to run counter to the market philosophy that the public interest will be achieved by individuals pursuing their own self-interest. It is this latter philosophy that is at the heart of sustainable development with its emphasis on economic valuation and economic instruments to achieve environmental protection. Sustainable development policies generally embody an economic determinism with respect to technological change. These policies avoid the issue of ethics and assume environmental and economic goals are compatible. Yet engineers today are grappling with the ethical dilemmas posed by everyday conflicts between the economic and environmental requirements of their work. In the past conflict between self-interest and public interest was seldom a problem for engineers, since engineering works were almost synonymous with human progress. Today environmental issues have created a divergence between self-interest, employer interest, professional interest and public interest. But how realistic is it to expect engineers to display higher ethical standards than those normally expected of the wider community? And can individual ethics play a significant role in influencing technologies that are collectively shaped by professional paradigms and philosophies?

The Precautionary Principle

References American Public Health Association. (2001). The precautionary principle and children’s health (Policy statement No. 200011). American Journal of Public Health, 91(3), 495-496. Buckley, S. J. (2015). Hormonal physiology of childbearing: Evidence and implications for women, babies, and maternity care. Washington, DC: Childbirth Connection. http://transform.childbirthconnection.org/ reports/physiology/ Kriebel, D., & Tickner, J. (2001). Reenergizing public health through precaution. American Journal of Public Health, 91(9), 1351-1355. National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. (2014). Intrapartum care: Care of healthy women and their babies during childbirth. London, England, United Kingdom. www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg190/evidence The Precautionary Principle