Ecological Economics 1

Abstract

Ecological economics is a transdisciplinary effort to link the natural and social sciences broadly, and especially ecology and economics. Its goal is to develop a deeper scientific understanding of the complex linkages between humans and the rest of nature, and to use that understanding to develop policies that will lead to a world which is ecologically sustainable, has a fair distribution of resources (both between groups and generations of humans and between humans and other species), and efficiently allocate scarce resources including �natural� and �social� capital. This requires new approaches that are comprehensive, adaptive, integrative, multiscale, pluralistic, evolutionary, and which acknowledge the huge uncertainties involved.