Ecological EconomicsEcological Economics is the study of the allocation of available resources among alternative desirable ends within and between generations. Economics should be science based and value driven, but unfortunately much of what passes for economic theory today is faith based and ideology driven. Economic ideologues generally favor one approach to allocation, such as capitalism or socialism, for any economic problem. Ecological Economics takes a more scientific approach, assessing the desirable ends of economic activity, the nature of the available resources required to achieve those ends, existing institutions, and characteristics of human behavior before deciding how to allocate resources.
Ecological economics differs from conventional economics in the following ways:
- Ecological Economics views the human system as a subset of the sustaining and containing global ecosystem.
- Ecological Economics upholds that the global ecosystem obeys the physical laws of thermodynamics (which physicists refer to as the supreme laws of nature) as well as the laws of ecology.
- Ecological Economics recognizes that the global ecological-economic system is highly complex, non-linear and continually evolving and that simple answers or models to difficult questions rarely exist.
- Ecological Economics requires a systems approach toward economic theory and decision making in order to provide a meaningful process to address modern economic challenges and opportunities.
