Session 5. (1) Consumption: What Sorts of Constraints on It Should We Accept for the Environment’s Sake? (2) Can Economics Help Solve Environmental Problems? Why Cost-Benefit Analysis and Discounting the Future Can’t Give Proper Weight to the Interests of Future Generations and Non-Humans. (3) Saving Nature and Feeding People: How to Balance Them?
Come prepared to discuss:
Mark Sagoff, “Do We Consume Too Much?” The Economy of the Earth, 2nd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2008): 110-136. Available on classesV2.
Garrett Hardin, “Living on a Lifeboat,” BioScience (1974). Available on classesV2.
John O’Neill, “The Constituency of Environmental Policy,” Ecology, Policy, and Politics: Human Well-being and the Natural World (London: Routledge, 1993): 44-61. Available on classesV2.
Alan Carter, “Saving Nature and Feeding People,” Environmental Ethics 26 (2004): 339-360, READ pp. 339-358 ONLY. Available on classesV2.
See also...First and second cartoons by Ken Avidor illustrating the tragedy of the commons.
So you'd like to know more...
Luis A. Camacho, "Consumption as a Topic for the North-South Dialogue," in The Ethics of Consumption, ed. David Crocker and Toby Linden (Rowman & Littlefield, 1998): 552-559. Available on classesV2.
Juliet A. Schor, "An Economic Critique of Consumer Society," in The Ethics of Consumption, pp. 131-138. Available on classesV2.
Partha Dasgupta and Geoffrey Heal, "The Optimal Depletion of Exhaustible Resources," Review of Economic Studies 41 (1974): 3-28. Available on classesV2.
Judith Lichtenberg, "Consuming Because Others Consume," in The Ethics of Consumption, pp. 155-175. Available on classesV2.
Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science (1968). Available on classesV2.
Elinor Ostrom, "Reflections on the Commons," Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge UP, 1990): 1-28. Available on classesV2.