Malte Faber - Böcker

In today's world – despite the dramatic anthropogenic environmental changes – a proper understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature requires a certain detachment. The pressing problems in their whole extent will only be fully understood and solved with comprehensive and patient analysis. Accordingly, this book develops new perspectives on fundamental questions of biology, ecology, and the economy, integrated within a framework of a terminology specially devised by the authors. By illuminating the epistemological backgrounds of ecological-economic research, the authors lay foundations for interdisciplinary environmental research and offer guidelines for practical action. In close contact to the findings of present-day biology and economics, they demonstrate the fruitfulness as well as the shortcomings of modern science for the understanding of the proper place of humankind in nature.. Frequently, current problems in the fields of economics, ecology, politics, philosophy and biology are discussed in a kind of "dialogue" with thinkers and poets like Bacon, Quesnay, Kant, Goethe and Novalis. On the other hand, the book offers traits of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought: a precise, analytical approach to theory and a pragmatic approach to action. Both approaches are used by the authors complementarily. Thus the authors lay the foundations for an ecological economical and political practice which is able to tackle concrete environmental problems on an encompassing and long-term basis. This translated volume will be of great use and interest to students of ecology, economics and in particular environmental education, sustainable development and environmental ethics.

In today's world – despite the dramatic anthropogenic environmental changes – a proper understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature requires a certain detachment. The pressing problems in their whole extent will only be fully understood and solved with comprehensive and patient analysis. Accordingly, this book develops new perspectives on fundamental questions of biology, ecology, and the economy, integrated within a framework of a terminology specially devised by the authors. By illuminating the epistemological backgrounds of ecological-economic research, the authors lay foundations for interdisciplinary environmental research and offer guidelines for practical action. In close contact to the findings of present-day biology and economics, they demonstrate the fruitfulness as well as the shortcomings of modern science for the understanding of the proper place of humankind in nature.. Frequently, current problems in the fields of economics, ecology, politics, philosophy and biology are discussed in a kind of "dialogue" with thinkers and poets like Bacon, Quesnay, Kant, Goethe and Novalis. On the other hand, the book offers traits of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought: a precise, analytical approach to theory and a pragmatic approach to action. Both approaches are used by the authors complementarily. Thus the authors lay the foundations for an ecological economical and political practice which is able to tackle concrete environmental problems on an encompassing and long-term basis. This translated volume will be of great use and interest to students of ecology, economics and in particular environmental education, sustainable development and environmental ethics.

This groundbreaking book takes a fresh look at how environmental problems emerge from economic activity and how they may be addressed in a responsible and sustainable manner. At its centre is the concept of joint production. This captures the phenomenon whereby several effects necessarily emerge from one activity and whereby human action always entails unintended consequences. This, according to the authors, is the structural cause behind modern-day environmental problems. Combining concepts and methods from philosophy of science, systems theory, thermodynamics, economics and ethics in a truly interdisciplinary manner, the authors convincingly argue that the joint-production perspective has fundamental and far-reaching implications for the valuation of economic goods, the dynamic analysis of economy-environment interactions, and the accumulation of stocks in ecological-economic systems. Complementing the joint-production perspective with the ethical notion of responsibility, the authors develop principles of sustainable environmental policy, and give philosophical support to the precautionary principle. Four extensive case studies illustrate and deepen the approach.With a wide range of analysis and case studies, this book will be of great interest to researchers and students in ecological economics, environmental and resource economics, environmental policy and regulation, environmental valuation, as well as environmental ethics and responsibility.

This ground-breaking book focuses on neo-Austrian capital theory and its application to the modelling of long-run economy-environment interactions.The book begins by presenting an overview of the modelling approach and offers an historical survey of capital theory and its development. The authors then provide a detailed introduction to the neo-Austrian modelling technique and extend it to include time horizons and growth models. The model is then applied to environmental issues such as green national accounts, resource rents and climate change to show how the neo-Austrian approach gives fresh and illuminating insights. An empirical application to the iron and steel industry is also presented.Capital and Time in Ecological Economics will be of interest to ecological and environmental economists, economic capital theorists and all those following developments in the neo-Austrian approach to economics.

Ecological Economics offers an authoritative overview of a rapidly developing discipline lying at the interface of economics, natural science and philosophy. This pioneering new book focuses on the concepts and methods required to integrate sciences and humanities in order to build ecological economics.Ecological Economics as a practice seeks to comprehend the evolving interactions between humans and the natural world. Ranging across the discipline from its conceptual and philosophical foundations to problems of global warming and waste production in the chemicals industry, the authors confidently address the central dilemma of control over nature by humans ignorant of the environmental impacts of their actions. Faber, Manstetten and Proops argue convincingly for an evolutionary approach to human-nature interactions and for the use of natural science concepts, such as entropy.Students and researchers concerned with environmental, resource and ecological economics will welcome Ecological Economics as a convincing and innovative approach to the creation of a discipline capable of contributing to a new relationship between human and non-human nature.

During the fifties and the sixties the neoclassical concept of the production function was criticized in numerous papers. In particular, the aggregation of different capital goods into a single number was reprehended. A second essential disadvantage, namely the neglect of the time structure of the production process, found, however, rela­ tively little attention. While up to the thirties the Austrian capital theory which stressed the time aspect of production was an important school, it fell into oblivion after the great capital controversies of the thirties. It took over thirty years, i. e. till the beginning of the seventies be­ fore it came to a renaissance of the Austrian capital theory by var­ ious writers. We may roughly classify the different attempts of Hits rebirth in modern economics" into three groups: 1. The approach of ~ [1970, 1973, 1973a] has received most of the attention in the literature (Burmeister [1974], Faber [1975], Fehl [1975], ~[1975], Hagemann and ~ [1976]). It will be shown in Chapter 9 that ~ is only in so far a Neo-Austrian as he does explicitly take into consideration the vertical time structure of the production process. But he does not use the Austrian concepts of superiority of roundabout methods, of time preference and of the period of production. 2. The latter concept has been revived by the second group, to which Tintner [1970], von Weizs~cker [1971a, 1971b, 1974], ~ [1971, 1976 and ~ [1973, 1975, 1976] belong.

The neglect of time in general and of the time structure of production in particular in mainstream economics led to the rebirth of the Austrian tradition in the seventies. The names of BERNHCLZ, HICKS, KIRZNER and VON WEIZSACKER are representative of different approaches. In 1979 my "Introduction to Modern Austrian Capital Theory" appeared, in which I unified various papers BERNHOLZ and I had written. I also linked our approach to those of VON NEUMANN, of HICKS and of neoclassical capital theory. These "Studies" supplement and continue my "Introduction" in various ways. With all the authors of the present volume I have cooperated for several years. This volume is subdivided into five parts. The first one, Historical Perspectives, gives first an outline on the development of Austrian capital theory from its origins to the present. Next it relates Modern Austrian Capital Theory to SRAFFA's theory and to the Austrian subjectivists' pure time preference theory of interest. The latter theory is represented in its opposition to the traditional productivity-cum-time preference explanation of interest, which is. common t9 neoclassical and BOHM-BAWERKian capital theory alike. The Austrian subjectivist pure time preference theory has been misinterpreted in its recent presentation, which has led to misunderstandings. It is shown that there is no real contradiction between the two appoaches.

Jedes Jahr verursacht unsere bisherige Produktions- und Verbrauchsweise große Mengen an Hausmüll. An Industrieabfall, Bauschutt und Bodenaushub kommt noch die zehnfache Abfallmenge hinzu. Weit über die Hälfte dieser Mengen werden bisher deponiert. Sowohl aus geologischen als auch aus politischen Gründen ist das noch verfügbare Volumen der bundesdeutschen Deponien begrenzt und reicht nur noch wenige Jahre aus. Ein Umdenken in der Abfallwirtschaft ist daher erforderlich: Abfälle müssen in großen Mengen vermieden oder wieder verwertet werden. Dazu ist es notwendig, daß Produktions- und Verbrauchsweise sich ändern. Ziel des Buches ist es zu zeigen, wie das durch die Erhebung einer Abgabe auf zu deponierende Abfälle bewirkt werden kann und welche wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen zu erwarten sind. Anhand von Szenarien und Fallstudien werden die durch eine Abfallabgabe ausgelösten Anpassungsprozesse erläutert, umweltpolititische Rahmenbedingungen und Schwierigkeiten der Durchsetzung werden diskutiert. Die erste Auflage wurde gründlich redaktionell überarbeitet und an einigen Stellen ergänzt. Insbesondere wurde ein zusätzliches Kapitel über umweltpolitische Handlungsprinzipien angefügt, in dem die Autoren ihre Erfahrungen zusammenfassen, die sie seit Erscheinen der ersten Auflage in Diskussionen mit Vertretern von Politik, Behörden, Verbänden, Industrie und Wissenschaft gewonnen haben.

This text is concerned with the long-run interactions between the economy and the natural environment. Part 2 explores and develops the concept of evolution, in particular distinguishing between evolution which does not involve the emergence of novelty, and evolution where novelty does occur. In Part 3, three types of time irreversibility are developed, and these concepts are used to show how time has been treated in the natural sciences. Part 4 addresses the problem of "ignorance" in philosophy and science, particularly with respect to the conceptualization, study and solution of environmental problems. Part 5 is concerned with the economic modelling of the above concepts. It extends and adapts neo-Austrian capital theory to provide a basis for the modelling of long-run economy-environment interactions. A heuristic simulation model is described, and its simulation results are discussed. Part 6 draws some lessons from the earlier discussion and analysis. It also stresses the role and the importance of interdisciplinary work for the understanding of relationships between economic activity and the natural environment.

This book analyzes environmental protection and resource use in a comprehensive framework where not only economic but also natural scientific aspects are taken into consideration. The special features of the book are (i) that the authors utilize a natural scientific variable, entropy, to characterize the economic system and the environment, (ii) that environmental protection and resource use are analyzed in combination, and (iii) that a replacement of techniques over time is analyzed. The authors investigate the use of the environment both as a supplier of resources and as a recipient of pollutants with the help of thermodynamic relationships. The book therefore provides a new set of tools for environmentalists and economists.

The global greenhouse effect may be one of the greatest challenges ever to face humankind. If fossil fuel use, and the consequent CO emissions, 2 continue to increase at their current trend, there is the possibility that over the next century there will be massive climate change and the flooding of coastal areas. The economics profession is beginning to respond to this challenge, through seeking to understand the economic processes which detennine the demand for energy, the proportion of this energy supplied by fossil fuels, and the policy instruments available for reducing fossil fuel demand while still supplying appropriate amounts of energy. This study is a contribution to that literature. We examine the impact of structural changes in the German and UK economies upon CO emissions 2 over the last two decades, and explore the potential for further structural change to reduce such emissions. This study is different from much of the current literature, in that we do not presuppose that the respective economies consist of only one, or a few, sectors. Instead, we analyse the interrelationships of 47 sectors for about 20 years, using input-output methods. We also deal with the effects of the changing sectoral structure of imports and exports of these two countries on the 'responsibility' for CO emissions. On the basis of this extensive evidence we have a solid 2 foundation to develop different scenarios to show how the 'Toronto target' of reducing CO emissions by 20% over 20 years can be achieved.

Klimawandel, Artensterben, Energie- und Rohstoffmangel sind globale Herausforderungen, die unmittelbar mit unserer Wirtschaftsweise verbunden sind. Sie betreffen unser Dasein im Kern und gefährden die Möglichkeiten, heute und in Zukunft, als Gesellschaft und individuell, ein gutes Leben zu führen.

Ideally, they serve as guidelines for effective decisions and show how change is possible despite immense challenges. The book is aimed at anyone who wants to contribute to the transformation towards sustainability - whether in politics, business, administration or civil society.