Extinction of the human race: Doom-mongering or reality?

Aalbers, Rob

doi:10.1007/bf01384533

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…N=!max{R!R cl ,0} where R cl is the critical load that can be absorbed by the environment without environmental damage (cf. Aalbers (1995)). 9.…”

Section: Conclusion and Some Implications For Public Financementioning

confidence: 99%

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Entropy, environment, and endogenous economic growth

Smulders

1995

Int Tax Public Finan

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This paper investigates the proper modeling of the interaction between economic growth and environmental problems, summarizes under which conditions unlimited economic growth with limited natural resources is feasible, and describes how sustainable growth can be achieved. It synthesizes the results from various environmental endogenous growth models.The physical dimension and the value dimension of economic activity have to be treated as conceptually distinct. Accumulation of natural variables is bounded due to biophysical laws (notably, the entropy law). However, economic value may grow through the substitution of reproducible human inputs for natural inputs. The properties of knowledge, which is the primary human input, do not contradict unlimited new knowledge creation. 1 IntroductionIt seems that mainly current generations benefit from the way present Western economies are structured, growing and changing. Future generations may be worse off when unsustainable consumption levels and investment patterns translate (after possibly a long time lag) into severe environmental disruption and decline of material standards of living due to scarcity of resources. Unless the concern for the future generations is low, this may be suboptimal. From a moral point of view, unsustainable development conflicts with fairness to future generations. Hence, the challenge is to achieve sustainable development, defined as non-decreasing well-being for representative members of society over a long horizon (Pezzey 1992). This goal would be easier to attain if society would not have to abandon economic growth. It is true that on many occasions material growth and scientific progress have been criticized and accused of causing environmental and social problems (see e.g. Mishan 1993). However, mankind always tried, and often succeeded, to improve conditions of life by economic means (e.g. through establising agricultural production, trade or developing new industrial goods).Is it possible simultaneously to realize economic growth and environmental preservation? Economics has attempted to address this question from different angles. The "mainsteam" literature focussed on exhaustible resources (e.g. Stiglitz 1974, Dasgupta and Heal 1974, Krautkraemer 1985. At the core were the importance of the price mechanism and the substitution possibilities of manmade inputs for natural resources. At the same time, others began to stress the economic implications of thermodynamic laws and ecology (e.g. Kneese, Ayres and d'Arge (1970), Daly (1973), GeorgescuRoegen (1971GeorgescuRoegen ( , 1975). They insisted on the limits that physical and natural processes impose on economic activity and the difficulties in invoking the price mechanism because establishing property rights on environmental assets is often impossible. I will argue in this paper that these two views can complement each other and, more importantly, be reconciled by endogenous growth theory (initiated by Romer 1986). The central concept in this theory is the non-rival economic use...

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“…N=!max{R!R cl ,0} where R cl is the critical load that can be absorbed by the environment without environmental damage (cf. Aalbers (1995)). 9.…”

Section: Conclusion and Some Implications For Public Financementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Aalbers (1995) considers physically sustainable growth paths in an economy (without technological progress) in which natural resources are partly renewable, partly exhaustible.…”

Section: Conclusion and Some Implications For Public Financementioning

confidence: 99%