Conservación de recursos

Los papeles del mercado y del estado en la gestión ambiental: derechos de propiedad, información e incentivos

[Publicado también aquí].

El medio ambiente suele considerarse una excepción a los sistemas de gestión y económicos de las democracias liberales. Basta una somera revisión de las “crisis ambientales” de mayor actualidad (desde el cambio climático al desarrollo urbanístico pasando por las pesquerías, los incendios forestales o la biodiversidad) para percibir que tanto los políticos y las administraciones públicas, como las organizaciones ecologistas o buena parte de la población desconfían profundamente de los mecasnismos de mercado y la iniciativa privada como instrumentos para la gestión ambiental. Ante esta anomalía se reclama mayor inversión y control público que evite el éxito de los free-riders que “se aprovechan” de los bienes ambientales comunes. Ya hace un tiempo, en Una visión alternativa de la sostenibilidad: mercados y recursos naturales (que apareció posteriormente como artículo en la revista Grial), proponía que la realidad no se acomoda a esta visión popular y que los mecanismos de mercado suponen una alternativa viable a los ineficaces sistemas de gestión dominados por el estado que no han frenado (cuando no incentivado) la degradación ambiental, a pesar de utilizar abudantes recursos en este objetivo declarado.

Hace unos meses Jason Scorse, del Monterey Institute of International Studies, publicó en el blog Environmental Economics una propuesta de cuatro cambios en las políticas públicas por las que la “economía de mercado” podría mejorar la gestión ambiental (The “Four E’s” Of Environmental Improvement). Al igual que muchos “políticos progresistas” ignoran el funcionamiento del capitalismo (yo añadiría que también muchos “conservadores”, al menos en España), la mayor parte del movimiento ecologista tradicional siente aversión a los principios del mercado libre. Por esta razón Jason Scorse se sentía como una “especie en peligro de extinción” en una conferencia sobre recursos naturales comunes o de propiedad comunal y elaboró esta propuesta de cuatro principios que, aunque pudieran sonar a ideas básicas ya de sobra conocidas, fueron una novedad enormemente polémica en esa conferencia.

1. Eliminar todos los subsidios reacionados con los recursos naturales, que se suelen denominar “subsidios perversos” al reducir artificialmente sus precios y por tanto incentivar su sobre-consumo, al tiempo que desincentivan la innovación para la búsqueda de soluciones alternativas al problema del uso de los recursos naturales.

2. Expandir los derechos de propiedad en áreas donde no existen o son débiles. La alternativa, el acceso abierto, conduce a la tragedia de los comunes. La implementación de estos derechos puede tomar diferentes formas, desde la propiedad privada (la única modalidad en la que se fijan los críticos con esta propuesta) a la estatal o la comunitaria de un grupo de individuos (la “comunidad”). Scorse plantea que la clave no es tanto el tipo de derechos como que sean transparentes y aplicables de modo efectivo. Creo que, por el contrario, si existe una realción entra ambas cuestiones: los derechos estatales suelen funcionar mal convirtiéndose en un sistema de acceso abierto de facto (véase lo que sucede con las pesquerías). Los derechos comunitarios son una buena solución en comunidades tradicionales con fuertes vínculos internos y normas informales de gobierno. Por el contrario, los derechos comunitarios suelen generar conflcitos cuando esas comunidades “se abren” al mundo exterior al aumentar sus flujos de personas, información o financieros. En un mundo globalizado, las comunidades tradicionales son, cada vez, menos comunidades y menos tradicionales por lo que el uso de modelos comunitarios de gobierno se está quedando desfasado. Puede ser efectivo en determinados contextos pero también se corre el riesgo de fracasar por forzar su implantación, siguiendo ejemplos de pasados éxitos, en comunidades que ya no funcionan como tales. Un buen ejemplo del desacoplamiento temporal entre la pervivencia de derechos comunitarios y el cambio en el funcionamiento de esas comunidades lo tenemos en las causas profundas de lo sucedido en con los incendios en Galicia. En este caso la única solución viable es diseñar una transición a sistemas de propiedad privada, en algunos casos con modelos de cooperativismo que traten de conjugar la propiedad privada (derechos individuales) con la gestión comunitaria.

3. Empoderar a la sociedad con información. Scorse propone que en un sistema “puro” de libre mercado la ciencia ambiental no sería financiada al no aportar valor económico, especialmente en el corto plazo. Por eso plantea que el principal papel de los fondos públicos sea la financiación de una investigación ambiental que aporte información a los ciudadanos, empresas y ONGs para que los mercados internalicen y valoren adecuadamente los bienes y servicios ambientales. Aunque esta puede ser la mejor opción en el corto plazo, debería buscarse una alternativa en el medio y largo palazo. El poco valor añadido que genera la información ambiental no se debe, en mi opinión, a un problema intrínseco del sistema capitalista. Más bien es un problema del diseño institucional (desde los órganos de gobierno a los mercados) que no acopla las escalas ambientales y económicas en el espacio y en el tiempo (un tema que ya analicé al debatir los mecasnismos de mercado en la gestión ambiental y el problema de la gestión del agua, y en especial en España).

El acoplamiento de escalas es uno de los puntos fundamentales de las propuestas de la “resilience science”, una corriente transdisciplinar que aúna ecología, economía y ciencias sociales y que tiene su origen en el trabajo pionero de C.S. Holling. Por desgracia, este gruipo de científicos utilizan un lenguaje sumamente críptico que dificulta el debate y la transferencia de sus propuestas a otros ámbitos. Por el contrario, y curiosamenet, el blog Resilience Science, escrito por algunas de las figuras principalesde esta corriente, mantiene un lenguaje mucho má claro y directo. La ciencia de la resiliencia habla pocas veces de mercados libres, pero estos son en realidad los instrumentos más adecuados para hacer operativas muchas de las soluciones que proponen a los problemas de gestión ambiental. A modo de ejemplo, J.A. Wilson publicó recientemente un artículo en Ecology and Society (Matching Social and Ecological Systems in Complex Ocean Fisheries) donde presenta una visión basada en la ciencia de la resiliencia para la gestión pesquera. Marcelino Fuentes, con mucha ironía, “tradujo” a términos económicos más convencionales las propuestas de Wilson de modo que donde la ciencia de la resilencia invoca conceptos como instituciones, multiescala, o complejidad, Marcelino Fuentes identificaba como conceptos básicos los derechos de propiedad y los mercados.

Private ownership of fisheries would in principle work better than open access. But problems remain, and Wilson correctly identifies them. First, what you do with your fish population or portion of a population affects other populations or subpopulations of the same species. This leads to inefficient harvesting - you harvest too much because much of the costs of your harvesting are paid by others, not by you. Second, what you do with your fish population affects other components of the ecosystem your fish belong to, including other coexisting species of fish.

So, what you do affects other parts of the ecosystem and other areas. This mismatch between the scale of ownership and the different scales of ecological effects generates problems of efficiency ("sustainability"). To correct this mismatch Wilson suggests creating "multiscale institutions whose organization mirrors the spatial organization of the ecosystem." An obvious feature of these institutions is that they should be tied to space and not to fish populations, and thus should manage everything contained within that space. This is called "ecosystem management" in Resilience English.

Now, what should those institutions look like? I suggest that private agents could own and manage large areas of the seas. Perhaps they would contract specialized firms or individuals to conduct smaller-scale operations, but that would be up to them. Obviously, there would be no ecological or spatial externalities within their bounds.

Más que el debate entre la visión “resilente” y normativa de estos problemas, me interesa reseñar aquí que comparten diagnósticos y, en la práctica, buena parte de las soluciones.

4. Incrementar los mercados verdes a través de las compras gubernamentales. En todos los países, el estado es el actor económico principal (llegando a  representar el 20 y el 50% del PIB en los diferentes países de la OCDE). La mejor forma de crear políticas activas de conservación ambiental y sostenibilidad es utilizar criterios claros y dirigidos a estos fines en sus políticas de compras e inversiones. No se debe confundir esto con los subsidios. Es sarcástico, y sucede por ejemplo en España, comprobar como los edificios públicos son absolutamente ineficientes energéticamente mientras que se crean nuevas leyes que obligan a los particulars a invertir para aumentar la eficiencia de las propiedades privadas.

Los puntos 3 y 4 de estas propuestas van dirgidos a gestionar el gasto público mientras que el 1 y el 2 tratan de reducir y reconducir el papel de la administración pública (y de su paso reducir su gasto). Existen posturas más extremas, y creo que menos realistas en el corto plazo, que o bien proponen aumentar el gasto y el intevencionismo público o reducirlo casi por completo. Contra los primeros están todas las evidencias que comentamos más arriba y que demuestran que los sistemas de mercado funcionan mejor en la provisión de bienes y servicios incluyendo, como se está empezando a demostrar, los ambientales. Los segundos caen en ocasiones en la utopía y se olvidan de que lo realmente importante en un cambio radical, como el que reclaman (pasar del status quo actual a un “estado mínimo”) es precisamente como se realiza la transición (los ejemplos de éxitos y fracasos en las transiciones de economías socialistas a capitalistas en Europa del Este son una buena prueba). En este sentido, la provisión de información y las compras públicas pueden ser buenas herramentas para una transición eficaz. 

 

Una síntesis de la relación entre biodiversidad y funcionamiento de ecosistemas

Un reciente artículo en Nature presenta los resultados de una meta-análisis que sintetiza la información de numerosos experimentos que en los últimos años han tratado de determinar la existencia y naturaleza de la relación entre biodiversidad y funcionamiento de los ecosistemas. Los resultados refuerzan la “teoría de muestreo” (sampling theory) que explica las amyores abundancias o biomasas de ecosistemas más diversos por la mayor probabilidad de aparición de especies muy productivas en estos sistemas. Este meta-análisis tiene la ventaja de demostrar la consistencia de estos efectos en diferentes grupos tróficos y tipos de ecosistemas sintetizando la información que se discute en el Tema 2 (y que aparece en la bibliografía recomendada, donde se ha incluído este estudio).

Cardinale BJ et al. (2006). Effects of biodiversity on the functioning of trophic groups and ecosystems. Nature 443:989-992. [pdf]. Resumen:

Over the past decade, accelerating rates of species extinction have prompted an increasing number of studies to reduce species diversity experimentally and examine how this alters the efficiency by which communities capture resources and convert those into biomass. So far, the generality of patterns and processes observed in individual studies have been the subjects of considerable debate. Here we present a formal meta-analysis of studies that have experimentally manipulated species diversity to examine how it affects the functioning of numerous trophic groups in multiple types of ecosystem. We show that the average effect of decreasing species richness is to decrease the abundance or biomass of the focal trophic group, leading to less complete depletion of resources used by that group. At the same time, analyses reveal that the standing stock of, and resource depletion by, the most species-rich polyculture tends to be no different from that of the single most productive species used in an experiment. Of the known mechanisms that might explain these trends, results are most consistent with what is called the 'sampling effect', which occurs when diverse communities are more likely to contain and become dominated by the most productive species. Whether this mechanism is widespread in natural communities is currently controversial. Patterns we report are remarkably consistent for four different trophic groups (producers, herbivores, detritivores and predators) and two major ecosystem types (aquatic and terrestrial). Collectively, our analyses suggest that the average species loss does indeed affect the functioning of a wide variety of organisms and ecosystems, but the magnitude of these effects is ultimately determined by the identity of species that are going extinct.

Las clases de los miércoles se impartirán en el Aula A3

Debido a los problema surgidos con el cañón de proyección en el Aula 8, las clases teóricas de los miércoles de 12.30 a 13.30 se trasladan al Aula A3 del anexo. Las clases de los jueves y viernes se  mantienen en el aula 9, salvo los días en que se organicen talleres que también se celebrarán en el aula A3.

Documentación Tema 4 (curso 2006-07)

TEMA 4. SISTEMAS DE GESTIÓN PARA LA CONSERVACIÓN Y USO SOSTENIBLE DE LA BIODIVERSIDAD

• Sostenibilidad. Desarrollo sostenible.
• Bases socioeconómicas y legales. Derechos de propiedad. La tragedia de los comunes.
• Componentes y modelos de sistemas de gestión.

Presentación (formato ppt)

Documentación Temas 1, 2 y 3 (curso 2006/07)

Podéis obtener las presentaciones (formato ppt) correspondientes a los tres primeros temas en estos enlaces:

• Tema 1. Introducción
• Tema 2. Biodiversidad
• Tema 3. Servicios de los ecosistemas y su valoración

Incluyen sólo pequeñas modificaciones respecto a las utilizadas en el curso 2005/06. Para las recomendaciones de biblliografía podéis consultar las correspondientes al curso pasado (Tema 2 y Tema 3; la bibliografía general de la asignatura, incluída en la guía docente, es útil para el Tema 1).

 

El debate sobre la valoración de los servicios ambientales: Economía ambiental vs. economía ecológica

La valoración de servicios ambientales se está convirtiendo en el campo de batalla entre las dos aproximaciones a la “economía de la naturaleza”: la economía ambiental (en sentido estricto) y la economía ecológica. Mientras la primera defiende una sostenibilidad débil en la que la tecnología puede sustituir al capital natural y se fundamenta en la racionalidad y objetividad del análisis económico, la segunda se posiciona en una sostenibilidad fuerte (que se basa en la irreplazabilidad del capital natural) y utiliza las herramientas de la ciencia económica como un medio para defender sus posturas, sin aceptar necesariamente la racionalidad de sus argumentos.

Diferentes blogs han tratado este debate y pueden ser la forma más amena e instructiva de conocer “la naturaleza” del enfrentamiento:

1.

Worldchanging. Ecosystem Goods and Services: Series Introduction. Post introductorio a una serie sobre este tema.

Here's a sample of open issues that we hope to tackle:

• There have been a number of attempts to put a monetary value on global ecosystem services, ranging from $250 billion for boreal forest services to the now-famous $33 trillion global ecoservice valuation by Costanza et al. Given the magnitude of these figures in comparison to global GDP, and that what a dollar can buy or motivate itself changes over time, what meaning do such figures have? Are there alternate valuation metrics that would be more meaningful?
• Future wealth is usually discounted to the present day, so that a given financial or natural resource 50 years from now counts for far less in today's decision-making. Does this really make sense? If not, what alternate frameworks allow reasonable planning?
• When we talk about costs and benefits, how are they spatially and temporally distributed? Who are the winners and losers?
• Money doesn't translate directly into human well-being or happiness - $1000 for a subsistence farmer goes much further than the same amount for a well-off professional. Should "value" therefore be rescaled into a more direct human benefit calculation? If so, how?
• To tackle tough problems, it can be helpful to solve simpler cases first. At what scale can we accurately value resources - a forest, a wetland, a rare species of bird? Can valuation of ecosystem components be decomposed in this way? What about resources like oil or metals?
• For pollutants, valuing sinks is important - e.g. the atmosphere, biosphere, and oceans for absorbing carbon. Can sinks be valued in the same way as resources or services?
• In ecosystem service valuation, how can we value the cost-benefit of uncertain yet high-impact events? (e.g. worst-case climate change scenarios)
• In the best case, what tools could we imagine investors or policymakers using in 20 years? What opportunities and benefits might arise?
• What different strategies are available to implement market-based approaches for ecosystem goods and services valuation in developing countries? Developed countries?

2.

Environmental Economics. Críticas a los métodos de valoración económica de la economía ecológica y especialmente al estudio inicial de Constanza et al.

2.1. Willingness to pay and ecological economics.

Willingness (and ability) to pay is the foundation of the economic theory of value. The idea is, if something is worth having, then it is worth paying for. The idea extends to environmental resources like water quality and natural resources like trees. The key assumption is that environmental values are anthropogenic. Whatever people think the environment is worth is what it is worth. Economic methods can be used to attach estimates of willingness to pay to changes in the level of environmental quality and natural resource use.

…

The key concern among environmental economists is that the annual value of the environment is estimated to be about twice that of annual income. In other words, the value of the environment is priceless. [update: underlined words]

Neoclassical economists had a conniption. How in the world is the world's value greater than income? The study's methodology failed to consider substitution possibilities, etc, etc.

2.2. Asking the wrong question (more on ecological economics).

The primary purpose of environmental valuation methods is to provide a benefit measure to compare against costs for benefit-cost analysis of environmental policy. The types of questions typically considered by benefit-cost analyses are marginal decisions (even climate change). In order words, what are the benefits and costs of an incremental improvement in environmental quality? The "what is the value of god?"-type questions don't make sense, at least not to me.

…

It seems that there are two sorts of ecological economists. The first sort is the environmental economist who grew frustrated with some of the constraints of neoclassical economics but did not reject economics. I think of these types as "economic ecological economists." The work they do is environmental economics with greater integration of ecology and maybe a bit more fire and brimstone. These can all be good things.

The second sort is the ecologist who grew frustrated with economics and rejects neoclassical economics. In fact, this type is happy to stand up at a conference and tell everyone what is wrong with economics and economists. I think of these types as "ecological ecological economists." The work they do is ecology with some economics (and a lot of fire and brimstone) thrown in, and a lot of times the economics isn't always exactly right.

3.

Daily Grist. Can't See the Forest for the Bling (comentado en Environmental Economics, Northern forests are probably not worth up to $250 billion per year).

You thought they were just standing there, but forests in Russia, Canada, and other northern nations provide services worth up to $250 billion a year, say Canadian researchers. Water filtration, erosion control, habitat provision, greenhouse-gas absorption, and tourist attraction are highly lucrative pursuits that should be valued by governments, says lead researcher Mark Anielski. The ecological economist calculates that the benefits provided by forests in Canada -- home to one-quarter of the world's forests -- would amount to about $83 billion, roughly 9 percent of the nation's annual gross domestic product. While logging, mining, and other industrial activities lead to short-term economic growth, the long-term risks and problems they pose often go unaccounted for. Anielski, who presented at the just-concluded National Forest Congress in Quebec, hopes his findings will "change the way decisions are made." Ah, everybody loves a dreamer.

4.

Nancy E. Bockstaelet al. (2000). On Measuring Economic Values for Nature. Environ. Sci. Technol., 34(8), 1384-1389.Abstract. Este artículo es una respuesta a los estudios de Constanza y otros similares sobre evaluación económica de servicios ambientales:

Costanza et al. (9) and Pimentel et al. (11) calculate "total values" by scaling up a variety of estimates of values taken from other studies of ecosystem services and functions. The original studies valued small changes in specific and localized components of individual ecosystems, with each study implicitly holding constant other features of the global ecosystem and the economy. It is incorrect to extrapolate the value estimates obtained in any of these studies to a much larger scale, let alone to suppose that the extrapolated estimates could then be added together and applied to the whole planet.

/.../

... at least one aspect of the errors of scaling up values can be easily illustrated. Whatever the private good involved in consumption choices, be it ball point pens or pairs of socks, we can expect that it will be subject to diminishing value as more of the good is purchased (and consumed) within a given (conveniently defined) period of time. In applications, this property implicitly reflects the fact that even though not all pairs of socks are the same, in most cases an individual's willingness to pay for another pair is likely to diminish the more he already has. In this example, the individual has plenty of close substitutes for this potential new purchase. Likewise, an individual's willingness to pay for another pen will be conditioned on how many others he already has. Take away those previously purchased socks or pens, and the willingness to pay for a new one is very different.

Thus, simple multiplication of a physical quantity by "unit value" (derived from a case study that estimated the economic value for a specific resource) is a serious error. Small changes in an ecosystem's services do not adequately characterize, with simple multipliers, the loss of a global ecosystem. Values estimated at one scale cannot be expanded by a convenient physical index of area, such as hectares, to another scale; nor can two separate value estimates, derived under different contexts, simply be added together. When we estimate a compensation measure for one element of an ecosystem, we assume that other aspects of the world that influence human well-being are unchanged. For example, we might compute a compensation measure for the elimination of a specific wetland, holding others constant. In another analysis, a compensation measure for the elimination of a different wetland might have been estimated, holding the first at its initial level. But the two compensation measures cannot be added together to obtain the correct compensation in the event that both wetlands are eliminated.

/.../

Clearly, extrapolating from small-scale studies cannot help us to estimate the economic value for the world's ecosystems, but is there any reasonable answer to this question? We know that Costanza et al.'s estimate of an annual economic value of 33 trillion U.S. dollars is a logically inconsistent measure of what individuals would be willing to pay to avoid the loss, if only because this estimate exceeds their total ability to pay. Simply put, if, as Costanza et al. (9) estimate, the world's GNP is 18 trillion dollars, the world's population does not have 33 trillion dollars to spend annually.

/.../

Suppose instead that one asks what compensation the people of the world would require in order to voluntarily give up the world's ecosystems. This willingness-to-accept form of the economic valuation question uses the alternative baseline and highlights the need to define clearly the alternative state that applies when the compensation is paid. This is required to measure the compensation necessary to equate each individual's well-being, given the current level of the world's ecosystems, with that in an alternative state. But what is this alternative state: a different, newly emerging set of ecosystems or a complete void?

/.../

If the alternative state is "nothingness", then the answer to the willingness to accept question is trivial. There is no finite compensation that individuals would accept to agree to the loss of the world's ecosystems, and they would pay everything they had to avoid it. To an economist, this is the definition of an essential good, a good for which there is no finite compensation for its complete elimination. In this sense, ecosystems are essential.

5.

Ecological Economics. Ecosystem Values: A first step in comparing Ecol Econ to Env Econ. Rebaten  los argumentos de los posts de Environmental Economics.

There are far more than "two sorts of ecological economists." {For the record, some of us in the ecological economics world were not happy with the Costanza paper when it came out and are not happy that the legacy continues. We are also not happy with a whole lot of other stuff that appears under the banner "economics." But we don't let that stop us from trying to improve the workings of our discipline.}

Ecological economics is a big tent that allows for cross-disciplanary discussion between economists of various stripes, ecologists, and others. For those interested in better understanding what ecological economics is about, and in cotrasting it to traditional environmental and resource economics, I recommend Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh's Ecological Economics: Themes, Approaches, and Differences with Environmental Economics [PDF]. Here's a sampler:

Van den Bergh's paper begins with a distinction between Ecological Economics and Environmental (and resource) economics:

EE [ecological economics] integrates elements of economics, thermodynamics, ethics, and a range of other natural and social sciences to provide an integrated and biophysical perspective on environment-economy interactions, aimed at contributing to structural solutions to environmental problems. The core of EE can be associated with the goal of sustainable development, interpreted as both intra- and intergenerational equity; the view that the economy is a subsystem of a larger local and global ecosystem that sets limits to the physical growth of the economy; and, a methodological approach based on the use of physical (material, energy, chemical, and biological) indicators and comprehensive systems analysis.

EE provides a forum for multidisciplinary environmental research as well as an alternative view and approach to traditional environmental (and resource) economics (ERE). … On the one hand, ecological economics offers criticism of the ERE approach, and on the other, it tries to develop and apply alternative methods and approaches. …

The core of ERE is the theory of negative externalities or external costs. This considers environmental degradation and the use of unpriced natural resources as a negative effect outside the market by one economics agent or another, without any form of compensation taking place. This implies that the environmental problem is cast in terms of an interaction between people (economic agents), that is, nature is only implicitly described. EE is instead more interested in an explicitly modeling of people-environment or economic-ecological relations, by mapping out cause-effect relationships and dynamic processes within the environment (hydrological, chemical, physical and ecological). …

Another important opposition is between scale and allocation. ERE is aimed at optimal allocation and thus efficiency of use of scarce means (including resources). Environmental problems are translated through the concept "externality" (or external effect: or "external cost"). …

EE has chosen sustainable development as its central concept. This is subsequently approached both qualitatively and empirically, with particular attention for spatial scales (ranging from global to local). Within ERE, sustainable development is usually regarded as being identical to sustainable growth, which is studied with general and abstract models that avoid any reference to historical and spatial aspects, as well as specific characteristics of countries. ERE does not seem to take absolute physical limits to growth as seriously as EE, and regards the problem of a "maximum scale" of the economy as irrelevant. … EE generally assumes a longer time horizon that ERE…. EE is closer in spirit to evolutionary then to neoclassical economics… [EE is] characterized by concepts like path dependence, historical accidents, and irreversibility of changes. … Therefore, EE considers systems, including markets, as adaptive and coincidental rather than optimal.

The main goals and criteria for evaluating developments, policies and projects differ between EE and ERE. The dominant criterion of ERE is "efficiency" (or sometimes a more limited version, such as cost-effectiveness). … [ERE] presumes "more is always better." …[W]hereas in ERE distribution and equity are secondary criteria, EE emphasizes (basic) needs, North-South differences, and the complex link between poverty and environment. In addition EE is best characterised by the "precautionary principle", linked to environmental stability, with much attention to "small-probability-large-impact" combinations. …[P]recautionary principle is closely related to a concern for instability of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity,and environmental ethical considerations…. "Efficiency" is of secondary concern in EE. "Distribution is often considered as a more important criterion for evaluation policies and changes than efficiency. In addition, some argue that it is impossible to analyse distribution and efficiency separately. This would mean that the main tool of ERE: namely, equilibrium analysis, which assumes that efficiency can be assessed independently of distribution, is inaccurate at best.

ERE focuses on value dimensions: namely, utility and welfare in theory, and costs and benefits in practice. Unlike neoclassical economics, EE does not regard a total valuation of changes in ecosystems as the sum of private values. …

Next EE criticizes social objectives such as [ERE's] utilitarian approach to intergenerational welfare. … In addition, EE seems to discard consumer sovereignty when giving priority to the interest of systems above the freedom of choice of individuals, as in environmental movements like "deep ecology".

6.

Para una visión divertida, y profundamente crítica, de la economía ecológica, conviene no perderse este post de Marcelino Fuentes: Colorful ecological economics. Imprescindible acudir al post original para apreciar el significado de la crítica “colorful”, la única forma de hacer amena una disciplina tan aburrida …

Ecological economics is a big tent that allows for cross-disciplanary discussion between economists of various stripes, ecologists, and others. For those interested in better understanding what ecological economics is about, and in cotrasting it to traditional environmental and resource economics, I recommend Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh's Ecological Economics: Themes, Approaches, and Differences with Environmental Economics [PDF]. Here's a sampler:

Van den Bergh's paper begins with a distinction between Ecological Economics and Environmental (and resource) economics:

EE [ecological economics] integrates elements of economics, thermodynamics, ethics, and a range of other natural and social sciences to provide an integrated and biophysical perspective on environment-economy interactions, aimed at contributing to structural solutions to environmental problems. The core of EE can be associated with the goal of sustainable development, interpreted as both intra- and intergenerational equity; the view that the economy is a subsystem of a larger local and global ecosystem that sets limits to the physical growth of the economy; and, a methodological approach based on the use of physical (material, energy, chemical, and biological) indicators and comprehensive systems analysis.

EE provides a forum for multidisciplinary environmental research as well as an alternative view and approach to traditional environmental (and resource) economics (ERE). … On the one hand, ecological economics offers criticism of the ERE approach, and on the other, it tries to develop and apply alternative methods and approaches. …

The core of ERE is the theory of negative externalities or external costs. This considers environmental degradation and the use of unpriced natural resources as a negative effect outside the market by one economics agent or another, without any form of compensation taking place. This implies that the environmental problem is cast in terms of an interaction between people (economic agents), that is, nature is only implicitly described. EE is instead more interested in an explicitly modeling of people-environment or economic-ecological relations, by mapping out cause-effect relationships and dynamic processes within the environment (hydrological, chemical, physical and ecological). …

Another important opposition is between scale and allocation. ERE is aimed at optimal allocation and thus efficiency of use of scarce means (including resources). Environmental problems are translated through the concept "externality" (or external effect: or "external cost"). …

EE has chosen sustainable development as its central concept. This is subsequently approached both qualitatively and empirically, with particular attention for spatial scales (ranging from global to local). Within ERE, sustainable development is usually regarded as being identical to sustainable growth, which is studied with general and abstract models that avoid any reference to historical and spatial aspects, as well as specific characteristics of countries. ERE does not seem to take absolute physical limits to growth as seriously as EE, and regards the problem of a "maximum scale" of the economy as irrelevant. … EE generally assumes a longer time horizon that ERE…. EE is closer in spirit to evolutionary then to neoclassical economics… [EE is] characterized by concepts like path dependence, historical accidents, and irreversibility of changes. … Therefore, EE considers systems, including markets, as adaptive and coincidental rather than optimal.

The main goals and criteria for evaluating developments, policies and projects differ between EE and ERE. The dominant criterion of ERE is "efficiency" (or sometimes a more limited version, such as cost-effectiveness). … [ERE] presumes "more is always better." …[W]hereas in ERE distribution and equity are secondary criteria, EE emphasizes (basic) needs, North-South differences, and the complex link between poverty and environment. In addition EE is best characterised by the "precautionary principle", linked to environmental stability, with much attention to "small-probability-large-impact" combinations. …[P]recautionary principle is closely related to a concern for instability of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity,and environmental ethical considerations…. "Efficiency" is of secondary concern in EE. "Distribution is often considered as a more important criterion for evaluation policies and changes than efficiency. In addition, some argue that it is impossible to analyse distribution and efficiency separately. This would mean that the main tool of ERE: namely, equilibrium analysis, which assumes that efficiency can be assessed independently of distribution, is inaccurate at best.

ERE focuses on value dimensions: namely, utility and welfare in theory, and costs and benefits in practice. Unlike neoclassical economics, EE does not regard a total valuation of changes in ecosystems as the sum of private values. …

Next EE criticizes social objectives such as [ERE's] utilitarian approach to intergenerational welfare. … In addition, EE seems to discard consumer sovereignty when giving priority to the interest of systems above the freedom of choice of individuals, as in environmental movements like "deep ecology".

6.

Para una visión divertida, y profundamente crítica, de la economía ecológica, conviene no perderse este post de Marcelino Fuentes: Colorful ecological economics. Imprescindible acudir al post original para apreciar el significado de la crítica “colorful”, la única forma de hacer amena una disciplina tan aburrida …

Debate sobre los subsidios agrícolas, la conservación y la Política Agraria Común (27OCT)

El próximo 27 de Octubre a las 12.30 celebraremos el taller de debate previsto en el calendario en el Aula A3. Tal como hemos acordado en clase, ene sta ocasión utilizaremos un formato de debate abierto entre dos grupos de alumnos. Los miembros de ambos grupos han sido elegidos al azar en clase y cada grupo deberá defender una postura opuesta en el debate.

El tema a discutir será el papel de los subsidios agrícolas en Europa, su papel en la conservación de los ecosistemas y en la vida rural. Centraremos el tema alrededor de la Política Agrícola Común (PAC) de la Unión Europea que utiliza los subsidios a la producción o la permanencia de actividad o de población para promover la preservación de la población rural europea.

Cada grupo debe documentarse sobre este tema, trabajando como considere más oportuno (individualmente o en colaboración), para poder defender su postura en el taller. Un grupo debe defender el modelo agrícola actual (incluyendo la PAC), o sea la necesidad y oportunidad de los subsisdios. El otro grupo debe atacar este tipo de políticas y defender la desaparición de subsidios.

Para empezar la preparación de este debate, os sugiero consultar los siguientes posts que he ido publicando en mi blog (todos dentro de la categoría Recursos Naturales):

1. Sobre políticas agrícolas, subsidios y gestión ambiental:

• De la ecología a la economía: el crecimiento sostenible [monográfico de la revista Grial]
• Otro ex-ministro defiende el futuro de la agricultura (y de los subsidios)
• La estrategia posmoderna de defensa de los subsidios agrícolas
• El dilema de la biomasa como fuente de energía
• La defensa oficial española de la Política Agraria Común: Francia como referencia
• La defensa de lo indefendible: el Ministro francés de Agricultura y la Política Agraria Común
• Las carreras de armamentos entre incentivos y subsidios en la gestión ambiental
• Los subsidios agrícolas no son buenos para la economía, ni para la agricultura, ni para el medio ambiente
• Los usos agrícolas e ineficientes del agua producen la apariencia de escasez de recursos
• De las políticas agrícolas a las políticas alimentarias

2. Sobre la gestión del agua y sus usos agrícolas:

• El problema de la gestión del agua en España: de la ingeniería y la política al diseño institucional y los mercados
• La gestión del agua: entre la ideología, la política y la realidad
• Desarrollo urbanístico, gestión del agua y derechos de propiedad en el mediterráneo español
• Como gestionar el agua en un país “seco”: los mercados de servicios ecológicos como alternativa

Estos textos reflejan una posición personal (contraria a los subsidios), pero se trata en este caso de que los utilicéis para acceder a la información objetiva y a las fuentes que se citan (artículos de prensa y en revistas científicas e informes además de otros recursos en Internet).

La Tierra sin gente: la neoreligión del ecologismo apocalíptico

Alex Steffen, en Worldchanging, reflexiona sobre los peligros del pensamiento ecologista apocalíptico que defiende, de un modo más o menos explícito, que la "solución final" para el planeta Tierra es una fuerte reducción de la población humana o, más drásticamente, su extinción definitiva (un buen ejemplo de esta posición es The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement). Esta discusión es interminable pues se basa en encubrir bajo un manto de cientifismo (es obvio que el ambiente natural, entendido como aquel no afectado por la presencia del hombre, se conservará mejor en ausencia del propio ser humano) una polémica moral (y finalmente religiosa, aunque de una religión laica que adora a la naturaleza como principio y fin de todas las cosas).

En esta ocasión, Steffen nos alerta después de la aparición de un artículo en el Times británico, donde se publicó el gráfico, y un otro en New Scientist, Imagine Earth without people, que están generando muchos comentarios entre la blogosfera “verde” (un nuevo capítulo de este debate neoreligioso). Los artículos presentan un escenario de desaparición de los humanos sobre la Tierra para estimar los tiempos de “recuperación” de diferentes variables relacionadas con la salud ambiental de los ecosistemas. Entendido como un ejercicio de prospectiva resulta interesante, pero tomado como evidencia de la “necesidad” de nuestra desaparición resulta preocupante:

But this sort of Worldending thinking is poisonous. Like so many other ego-apocalyptic fantasies, it plays off two toxic memes: the idea that collapse is a positive force, and the idea that people have no ecologically acceptable place on this planet. Better writers than me have explored why both of these ideas are insane. What isn't explored often enough, though, is the effect these ideas and their like have on our culture: they sap our will to do better.

Collapse and extinction scenarios stoke our resignation, and let us off the hook for taking the tough, hard steps we'll be called to take over the next century if we are to build a sustainable civilization. We can't build what we can't imagine, but there's a corollary as well: what we imagine has a way of deeply influencing us (or, as Montaigne put it, "A firm imagination often brings on the event.").

Por supuesto, existe una línea argumental alternativa, más positiva para nuestro futuro:

A culture full of engaged, creative optimists with visions of a bright green future will produce a very different world than a culture of jaded misanthropes waiting for the Planetary Melt-Down. Optimism is a political act, challenging as it does the primary defense of the status quo -- that change is impossible. It is also a creative one. Yet our culture is full of portrayals of the end, and almost completely empty of images and stories and plans that show today to be the beginning of a new era. That's dysfunctional.

We know that we can do profoundly better than we are, that indeed, there's no technical reason why we can't build a society whose impacts on the natural world are positive.

So, yes, it's interesting to read a story about how long it would take for our skyscrapers to fall into ruins -- but it'd be thrilling to read a story about what it would take for humanity to thrive on Earth forever.

Pero como ya decía, este es un debate eterno (por algo para ciertos colectivos es el único mandamiento de su nueva religión). Hace ya meses recordábamos como las posturas apocalípticas se habían trasladado a una parte del mundo científico (De los neomalthusianos al exterminio de la población humana: ¿científicos manipulados o iluminados?), y como surgen respuestas en positivo (El Día de la Tierra: por un futuro abierto basado en la tecnología, la innovación y la gobernanza).

[Publicado inicialmente en el blog de Juan Freire]

Primer taller. Martes 17 Octubre, 12.30-14.30

Tal como se comentó en clase, el primer taller de debate de la asignatura se celebraá el próximo martes 17 de octubre de 12.30 a 14.30 en el Aula 3 del Anexo.

Esta sesión sustituye a las programadas inicialmente para los viernes 13 y 20 de octubre de 12.30 a 13.30.

¿Deben existir prioridades en conservación?

Marcelino Fuentes, en The purpose of conservation, plantea un debate interesante sobre la pertinencia de las prioridades en la conservación biológica. Claramente la negación de prioridades no es realista, pero también son criticables muchos de los criterios y prioridades de conservación que se utilizan. Este es el texto del comentario del Marcelino:

In a letter to Science George M. Woodwell, a respected ecologist, criticizes the whole idea of setting conservation priorities.

The objective of conservation is the preservation of a fully functional biosphere as the only human habitat. That entails preservation of the full range of genetic potential in species, the species in all of its intrinsic diversity.

Every concept in this quotation is meaningless unless it is carefully qualified or, better, quantified. The objective - only one? Of whom? His objective with his own money? All biological diversity? Tom Fenchel has said that if you look hard enough every individual is different. How can you preserve all the diversity in species when individual organisms change, reproduce and die all the time? Fully functional biosphere? Full compared to what? Why should we preserve the functionality of the biosphere when we can actually aim at increasing it, as we have always done?