Taking Natural Limits Seriously

Implications for Development Studies and the Environment

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3885232
AutoresBhaskar Vira (0000-0001-7766-6773, autor correspondente)
Ano2015
Volume46
Fascículo4
Páginas762-776
Data de publicação2015-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoDevelopment and Change (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0012-155X • E-ISSN: 1467-7660
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/dech.12175
OpenAlexW2131622888
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas10
Referências citadas29

This article explores how thinking about ecological limits, thresholds and boundaries has evolved in the last few decades, and explores the analytical and political possibilities that emerge if development studies scholars engage with these ideas. It makes the case for an engaged political economy approach, which focuses on understanding how finite resources at a variety of scales are shared between the competing claims of different groups in society. The article suggests that, while the science of planetary limits is important, the most significant societal challenges are not about how close we are to the limits, but involve finding mechanisms to reconcile the difficult trade-offs that inevitably arise when we consider alternative human pathways in the present and the future. Choices are ubiquitous, even when there may be no immediate ecological tipping point, and a political economy perspective focuses on the ways in which humanity prioritizes different, often irreconcilable, objectives and interests in relation to the environment. The productive consequence of this thinking for development studies is the need for a renewed focus on the key issues that define prosperity and well-being, as well as the political and moral economy within which human society governs itself, and its relationships with nature

Biology · Economic growth · Economic system · Economics · Environmental ethics · Humanity · Natural (archaeology) · Natural resource · Perspective (graphical) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Prosperity · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics) · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Law · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance · Water Governance and Infrastructure