Environment And Economic Growth To Be Balanced With Green Economics

Economic development is commonly linked only to capital increase. However, for the ecological economy, this is not the case. One of the main ecological economists is Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen , considered the founder of this economic strand.

“Before answering ‘what is ecological economics’, we need to think about the current situation in the world and how the limits of economic growth were perceived in the 60’s, beginning of the 70’s. An important author is Georgescu-Roegen, writer of the book Entropy and the Economic Process , which shows the important relationship between the economy and the biophysical or thermodynamic limits of economic activity in the world”, explains Paulo Sinisgalli, coordinator of the Graduate Program in Environmental Science at the Institute of Energy and Environment (IEE ) from USP.

Entropy is a thermodynamic quantity closely related to physics and chemistry and corresponds to the degree of disorder in a system. For example, increasing temperature causes ice to melt until it changes state and this can be considered an increase in entropy. For Georgescu, human activities use low-entropy resources and release high-entropy ones. Thus, there is a lot of dissipated energy and all this happens very quickly, just depending on economic demand, without balance with the environment.

Concept
“The central idea of ​​ecological economics is to show that we have biophysical limits to economic activities. The greatest difficulty is to show this inversion of values, this inversion of posture, in relation to economic activity. In order to have sustainability, it is important to reverse this worldview”, says Sinisgalli. Ecological economics seeks to show the interrelationship between the environment and production. For example, economic development would not depend on how much you exploit, but on how and whether or not there is respect for the biological, physical and chemical limits of nature. “The idea is that there is no need to expand the library, but it is possible to improve the books that are placed in it”, she adds.

The concept does not stop at how much can be exploited, but also involves how much can be polluted: “It is concerned with these biophysical limits both in the use of resources by the economy and in the disposal of waste in the environment”.

Importance
When thinking about environmental problems, illegal trafficking in fauna and flora and deforestation are two of the important points. The ecological economy can also positively influence the reduction of the practice of these activities: “The ecological economy sees very clearly the need to establish the minimum conditions necessary for maintaining the quality of life: if we know that the Amazon forest represents an important source of water for the Cerrado, for supply, for agricultural production, it is this recognition, this systemic look that makes ecological economics see the importance of this medium. Regarding the trafficking of fauna and flora, in order to guarantee the ecosystem service, it is important that there is a restriction on this market. For example, the scarcity of a certain good ends up raising its price in the market, encourages this illegal trade. With that in mind, we need alerts, awareness and control mechanisms”.

But, in addition to the environmental focus, this aspect also relates to public policies aimed at the social, as explained by Sinisgalli. He adds: “It is important to clearly establish the limits of resource use, the support capacity of the environment, the capacity to absorb waste and, based on this, establish economic activity and, above all, think of an equitable and fair distribution of wealth generated today and for future generations”.

“This economy is a system that is involved by the social question and it is involved by the environment. In other words, it’s like an onion: the central part is the economy, the surroundings have society and the outside has the environment”, analyzes the professor.

difficulties
However, however good the objectives of ecological economics are, that is, in favor of maintaining a balance between the environment and economic growth, it still faces difficulties.

“The main difficulty of the ecological economy is to demonstrate this aspect, to change the world view a little, which is, basically, to think that the market can solve environmental issues”, points out the expert. He adds: “One of the difficulties of ecological economics is finding models that are quite consistent and that manage to show how bad interactions between economics and ecology can lead to very critical situations, if they are not reversed”.