We would then establish a set of values (economics) that recognized and nurtured the integrity of Nature: our life-support system. But, the reality is that we divide up the unity of Nature into boxes for "experts" to pick-over, while the "big picture" becomes hopelessly lost. Politics is too busy serving the constituent's latest crisis and looking for votes in 2 to 4 years to foster a climate in which "sustainability" can ever grow and thrive. Increasingly, problems are global, and can 200 independent states ever form a collective management approach to environmental harmony? Copenhagen showed what a barrier that is. And then there is the question of what do we value. We have built a consumer-based economy worshipping the idol of growth. Until we can sit down and build a world in which science, policy and value are essentially the same, and based on a thriving life-support system, then we are fooling ourselves. Nature, remember, cannot be fooled, and has endless time in which to prove that. We need to re-establish the big picture.
Randall Baker started his studies in the UK in the 1960s by combining a degree in the Natural Sciences with Economics and Geography. He has continued in an interdisciplinary context in teaching and research ever since. His original focus was on land degradation in the tropics, especially on the process of desertification in East Africa. He went on, in the 1970s, to be Dean of the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia in the UK, and from there he took a chair in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. He has worked on energy and environment issues in many countries and is the author of several books in this field. He recently wrote a policy road-map for the Asian Development Bank to guide alternative energy development in Azerbaijan. Since 1991 he has been involved with developing the policy and administration fields at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, where he is now full-time as a Distinguished Professor. His website is www.randallbaker.org
Contents
1 Scope of the Book.........................................................7
2 Some Basic Thoughts.................................................13
Part one
The rules of the Game:...........................................17
3 Fundamentals about the Natural Environment.........18
4 The Biosphere: Love It or Leave It.............................22
Part two Policy............................................................................................31
5 What is Policy?...........................................................32
Part three Values..........................................................................................41
6 What is Economics?...................................................42
7 How do we value Nature?...........................................43
8 Some basic problems about being human.................54
Part four
Policy issues........................................................................59
I. Population..........................................................................60
9 What is a "population?".............................................61
10 Human population composition and trends.............61
11 Boom and Bust?.........................................................64
12 An aging population..................................................69
13 What has this to do with the environment?...............73
2. Food..........................................................................................77
14 What is food?..............................................................78
15 How did we get to this state of affairs?.......................89
3. Energy.....................................................................................89
16 Energy is Everything..................................................90
17 Early Days...................................................................91
18 When everything changed—the Energy Revolution 93
19 C aracteristics of energy after the Revolution...........95
20 How would we know if we had an energy crisis?.......97
21 The future.................................................................103
22 Risk, Policy and Psychology.....................................105
4. Pollution.............................................................................107
23 What is pollution, and why worry now?..................108
24 I can't breathe. Air Pollution...................................Ill
25 So, what are you going to do about it?.....................116
26 Don't drink the water...............................................118
27 Trashing the Environment.......................................123
5. Everyone's and no-one's:
Common Property problems........................132
28 Individual Rationality adds up to Collective Madness....................................................................133
6. "Second Generation" problems:
climate change..........................................................138
29 What are "second-generation" problems?...............139
30 So, what's the problem about climate change?........143
31 What's to be done about climate change?...............151
7. W. Sustainability........................................................154
32 Oh Dear. How to avoid shattering earnest good intentions..................................................................155
Part five
What to do?........................................................................159
33 Right, so what are we supposed to do now?............160
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