Description
Book SynopsisForced to embrace a post-carbon future, or risk serious damage to the planet, we have begun a race for alternatives to the scarce resources that previous generations relied on. In this book, Jonathan Moses and Anne Brigham consider how best we might negotiate the world’s scarce pool of natural resources, and avoid the pitfalls of the past.
In order to shift the world’s consumption from one set of scarce natural resources to another, they show the need for management regimes that are both politically, as well as environmentally, sustainable. They propose an alternative way to think about resource management for the future, one based on the collective ownership of (stewardship over) nature, and one where the rents resulting from this ownership, like the resources that produce them, belong to the people. Using case studies from particular markets, they demonstrate how such a management model might work to protect our common heritage and allow communities to secure the benefits we can and should expect from scarce resources – our natural dividend.
Trade ReviewThe Natural Dividend unravels a mystery: existing natural resource management practices produce efficiencies but they also create and reproduce inequalities. Clear in problem identification, thorough in discussing the present state of research, and bold in offering alternatives, The Natural Dividend unlocks the present enigma. A definitive work on the commons, this book provides a compass for our common future.
-- Franklin Obeng-Odoom, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science
Table of Contents1. Introduction
2. Who owns the sun?
3. The natural dividend
4. The earth: the market for land
5. The sea: the market for salmon
6. The sky above: the market for renewable energy
7. The earth beneath: the market for fossil and mineral resources
8. A common market? The market for global resources
9. Conclusion
