52 primavera - Verano 2010 So why should we try to understand global climate change from economic perspectives and how might alternative economic viewpoints help us to address the use of scarce resources from an ecologically-sustainable scale? Could alternative paradigms in economics lead us to value-laden, non-deterministic, and less individually-centered discussions intended to embrace actions to avoid the dire consequences stemming from unchecked economic growth, greenhouse gas emission accumulation and climate destabilization? The purpose of this essay is twofold: First, to inform the reader of the need to reshape discursive landscapes amongst researchers, academicians and media pundits in ways that welcome and foster the interplay of social and cultural phenomena within biophysical constraints. Secondly, the essay is meant to insist that the economic process, which is inherent to understanding global climate change given the choices or necessities we encounter to carry out our lifestyles, has been narrowly addressed. Rather, we should at least start by reckoning two very distinct views that address the nature of scarce resources and the scarcity of natural capital, namely: the neoclassical approach to economics and the environment and the ecological-economic approach to environmental distress. Economic analyses pertaining to global climate change ought to call into question human beings’ share of greenhouse gas emissions and other cumulative pollutants. Arguably, human-induced pollutants of this nature have grown dramatically since the onset of the industrial era (Harris 2006, p. 405). Again and again, climatologists and environmental scientists alert society about the dangers of reaching and exceeding tipping points whereby the expected gains from policies geared to change or reverse the trends may be offset by the expected losses arising from the social and ecological consequences of climate destabilization itself.3 This essay concludes by underscoring the need to (a) consciously differentiate between “needs” and “economic wants”, and (b) think and act as value-laden academicians and scientists. The author of this essay believes that well-informed academicians, scientists and the general public ought to aim beyond deterministic relationships and begin questioning the essence of many presuppositions that are often taken for granted behind models and theories. Challenging the premises underlying our economic theories makes sense if we are to seriously examine whether our current economic aspirations are at odds with our planet’s carrying capacity. It should be noted that this essay does not intend to address recent examples of efforts meant to combat climate destabilization, such as the latest international negotiations to craft a post-Kyoto international treaty aimed at stabilizing atmospheric concentrations stemming from the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., The Copenhagen Summit). I. Introduction Early manifestations of scientific inquiry on global climate change surfaced since the 1800s. In the early 1800s, Jean Baptiste Fourier pioneered that the earth’s atmosphere acts as a global greenhouse glass, which allows the Sun’s heat through but stops heat from escaping the Earth’s atmosphere. Toward the late 1800s, the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius posited that a human-induced greenhouse effect could occur on a global scale. Arrhenius conjectured that current trends of coal burning partly obeying the increased demand for energy, as a consequence of the process of industrialization, would lead to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, hence, causing temperatures on the Earth’s surface to rise.4 3 See, amongst others, Orr, D. (2009) Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse. New York, ny: Oxford University Press; and Hansen, J. (2009) Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. New York, ny: Bloomsbury. 4 Refer to Cline, W. R. (2004) “Climate Change”, chapter 1 in B. Lomborg, ed., Global Crises, Global Solutions. Cambridge, uk: Cambridge University Press, and Fankhauser, S. (1995) Climate Change: The
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