Guide to Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822327457 ISBN 13: 9780822327455

Verlag: Duke University Press, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

The Guide to Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy is a comprehensive presentation of definitions, philosophies, policies, models, and analyses of global environmental and developmental issues. With a wealth of comparative, multidisciplinary, and geographically varied perspectives on environmental governance, it also provides detailed and balanced discussions about specific environmental issues.
The guide combines formal, objective entries with critical commentaries that emphasize different opinions and controversies. With succinct explanations of more than a thousand terms, thoughtful interpretations by international experts, and helpful cross-referencing, this resource is designed to serve as a roadmap for understanding the issues and debates in the overlapping fields of environment and development. Intended for use by activists, journalists, policymakers, students, scholars, and interested citizens, the Guide to Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy

will be a helpful tool for anyone trying to get a comprehensive look at the many environmental organizations, schools of thought, development programs, international environmental treaties, conventions, and strategies that have proliferated in the past few decades.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Natalia Mirovitskaya is Visiting Research Fellow of Public Policy at Duke University. She is the author of Biological Resources of the Ocean: International Aspects and numerous other publications on international environmental policy and resource management.

William L. Ascher is Vice President, Dean of the Faculty, and Donald C. McKenna Professor of Government and Economics at Claremont McKenna College in California. His numerous books include Natural Resource Policymaking in Developing Countries, coauthored with Robert Healy and also published by Duke University Press. Mirovitskaya and Ascher are also coauthors of The Caspian Sea: A Quest for Environmental Security.

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"This useful reference work provides grounding for two essential tasks: understanding the needs of the present, and engaging with the compromises implicit in any attempt to assure that future generations will be able to meet their own needs."--Kai N. Lee, Williams College

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Guide to Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy

DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2001 Duke University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-2745-5

Chapter One

Basic Concepts of Development and Environment

1.1 Development: Introductory Concepts, Criteria, and Measurements

1.1.1 CAPITAL

Absorptive Capacity, Economic: the ability of the economy to use capital productively. Rapid natural-resource exploitation that brings large volumes of capital into an economy often results in disappointing economic growth because low absorptive capacity limits the returns on investment. R. P.

Capital: 1) physical assets produced by the economy, and financial assets, available as inputs for further production. This definition of capital is the classic definition of the factor of production that combines with land and labor as inputs in the production process. The value of physical capital can be calculated from the present value of the goods and services that the capital creates over time;

2) more broadly, all inputs available for economic activity, including human capital, technological capital, and natural-resource capital.

Capital Accumulation (in ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING): an environmentally adjusted concept of capital formation that accounts for depletion and degradation of NATURAL CAPITAL. See also SECTION 5.1.1.

Capital-Resource Substitution: a measurement of the degree of substitutability between humanmade capital and natural resources in production. For example, if the elasticity of substitution is 1.0 (perfect elasticity) between tractors and hectares of arable land in agriculture, a farmer with two tractors and one hundred hectares should theoretically be able to produce as much agriculture output as one with one tractor and two hundred hectares of land. R. P.

Critical Natural Capital: a concept introduced by the proponents of the STRONG SUSTAINABILITY approach that some resources, such as the ozone layer, the carbon cycle, or BIODIVERSITY have primary (e.g., ecological) values as well as secondary (e.g., human-use-based, or market) values. Given that humanmade capital often cannot completely or directly substitute the ecological capital, this school argues that a minimum goal of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT is to protect critical natural capital.

See David W. Pearce, Blueprint 3: Measuring Sustainable Development (London: Earth-scan, 1994).

Cultural Capital: 1) the factors that provide human societies with the means and adaptations to deal with the natural environment and to actively modify it. It includes the way people view the world and the universe (cosmology); environmental philosophy and ethics, including religion; traditional ecological knowledge; and social and political institutions. See also SOCIAL CAPITAL.

See Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke, "A Systems Perspective on the Interrelations between Natural, Human-made and Cultural Capital," Ecological Economics 5 (1992): 1-8. Fikret Berkes

2) cultural beliefs and practices held by particular groups within society, as influenced by history, education, habitual practices, income levels, etc. For example, Max Weber argued that cultural capital of specific groups provides them with orientations to succeed or fail at development (e.g., attributing economic success to the "Protestant ethic"). Differences in cultural capital can divide societies along class and ethnic lines.

See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958); Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

Ecological Capital: a notion used in ENVIRONMENTAL ACCOUNTING to define the contribution of the environment to economic activity. See also NATURAL CAPITAL/NATURAL ASSETS. See, generally, SECTION 5.1.1.

Human Capital: capital that comprises all individuals' capacities for work (skills, knowledge, health, strength, motivation) as well as the networks and organizations through which they are mobilized. Human capital therefore encompasses both individual resources and SOCIAL CAPITAL.

National Heritage (National Estate, Natural Patrimony): a designation given by governments to the components of the cultural and natural environment that are of national value and need to be preserved for the benefit of the nation. Such components possess aesthetic, historical, scientific, social, cultural, ecological, or other values. They may include rare species, parks and reserves, museums and sites of archaeological interest, or nature sites of special merit. Some components, such as Lake Baikal and the Hermitage in Russia, belong to the global world heritage and are to be preserved in accordance with the WORLD HERITAGE CONVENTION.

Natural Capital/Natural Assets: 1) the stock of life-supporting systems, BIODIVERSITY, renewable and nonrenewable resources. Natural capital excludes humanmade capital. The contribution of the concept is in clarifying that environmental resources are assets in the economy insofar as they contribute to economic productivity and welfare. R. P.

2) defined narrowly, the noncommercialized part of the natural environment that provides environmental services not captured in the standard GROSS NATIONAL PRODUCT (GNP) account. In contrast, return on the commercialized environment, such as agricultural lands or oil reserves, are reflected in GNP statistics and therefore counted as part of a country's economic production and wealth. Natural capital, defined in that sense, can be measured by a NATURAL CAPITAL INDICATOR.

Natural Wealth. See NATURAL CAPITAL/NATIONAL ASSETS.

Social Capital: the level of trust, public commitment, and capacity for cooperation of a community or group that provides a basis for effective functioning. Social capital is said to rest on the capacity of social institutions, ranging from political and legal institutions to clubs and voluntary groups, to foster cooperation and instill identification with broad societal units. Advocates of the social-capital concept, dating at least as far back as Max Weber's notion of moral behavior of individuals toward all other members of society as a component of the "Protestant ethic," have argued that it is essential for understanding why economic growth does or does not occur; thus it should be considered as an "input" in the production process just like other forms of capital. They argue that economic development and democracy require the strengthening of micro-level social institutions as much as the provision of money, development expertise, or formal macrolevel democratic practices. Some theories of social capital (such as those of Edward Banfield and Robert Putnam) argue that social capital is so deeply imbedded in social institutions that its level persists over many generations. The maintenance of social capital is considered to be one of the prerequisites of STRONG SUSTAINABILITY.

See Edward Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (Chicago: Free Press, 1958); Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958); Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Undercapitalization: the lack of adequate investment capital to operate a firm, industry, or sector at high levels of efficiency and societal benefit. While many...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Duke University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0822327457
• ISBN 13: 9780822327455
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 424
• Herausgeber: Mirovitskaya Natalia, Ascher William
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland