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Sustainability science

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Incompatibility Of Benefit-Cost Analysis With Sustainability Science, Mark W. Anderson, Mario F. Teisl, Caroline L. Noblet, Sharon Klein Sep 2014

The Incompatibility Of Benefit-Cost Analysis With Sustainability Science, Mark W. Anderson, Mario F. Teisl, Caroline L. Noblet, Sharon Klein

Publications

Participants in sustainability science, as an emerging discipline, have not yet developed fully a coherent ontology, epistemology, ideology, or methodology. There is clearer agreement on the ideology of sustainability science, agreement that can be used to consider the compatibility of that ideology with methodologies brought to bear in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research teams. Benefit–cost analysis, one such methodology from the neoclassical economics tradition, is often used in the context of sustainability science. As currently formulated and practiced, benefit–cost analysis is incompatible with the ideology of sustainability science and should not be used to evaluate proposed solutions to sustainability problems. Other …


Intergenerational Bargains: Negotiating Our Debts To The Past And Our Obligations To The Future, Mark W. Anderson Nov 2013

Intergenerational Bargains: Negotiating Our Debts To The Past And Our Obligations To The Future, Mark W. Anderson

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The question of intergenerational obligation can be framed in multiple ways. Here, we use the idea of bargains to think about how those of us in the present relate to both the past and the future. To understand this approach assumptions behind the idea of intergenerational bargains are posited, three potential ontologies for intergenerational thinking are explored, and principles that might be applied to intergenerational obligations are considered. Finally, an ethic for intergenerational obligation is proposed. The idea of intergenerational bargains reveals common frameworks among futures studies, ecological economics, and sustainability science.