Search results for ""Author Martin O’Connor""

This important new book develops an ecological-economics perspective on sustainability at the regional, national and international level. It explores prospects for sustainable development using methods firmly grounded in empirical reality, as well as emphasizing scientific, economic and socio-political concerns.This approach is based on the construction of non-monetary indicators for sustainability, and the application of cost-effectiveness analyses to identify robust alternatives for the achievement of specified policy norms. In calculating the requirements for sustainability the contributors attach importance to multiple criteria decision aid (MCDA) methods of analysis to evaluate the key components of sustainability and help assess the sustainability of aregional or national economic development trajectory. Case studies of water pollutants in the Bretagne region in France and greenhouse gas reduction in Europe are used to investigate resource allocation from this perspective. The contributors utilize the M3ED model - a structural economy-environment simulation model which gives a multi-sectoral representation of a national economy's production, final consumption and environmental pressures - to explore feasible economic futures. It is applied to scenarios in France to demonstrate ways that prospects for sustainability can be investigated at a national level. The contributors compare and contrast these models with the aims of more typical neoclassical modelling in their search for the most effective approaches to defining operational measures for sustainability. This book will be of great interest to academics in the field of ecological and environmental economics and to policymakers and planners in government and industry.

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This major new book presents recent advances in the theory and practice of environmental valuation and resource management. Leading experts in the field present methodological and empirical evidence for applying valuation methods to ecological policy problems.The methodological contributions examine such themes as uncertainty, distributional conflict, positional analysis, weak comparability and the need for collective solutions to environmental problems. Case studies are incorporated to support these theoretical reflections. A number of empirical studies are used to demonstrate and evaluate valuation practices in a variety of institutional and policy settings. These range from international environmental issues such as climate change and transboundary atmospheric pollution, to species preservation and coastal ecosystem protection. The contributors conclude that effective approaches for the evaluation of environmental risks, degradation and benefits must be specifically designed as functions of institutional, social and ecological factors.Valuation and the Environment will be essential reading for students and scholars of environmental and ecological economics, environmental management and regulation, resource management and public policy.

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