Ecological economics and scientific controversies. Lessons from some recent policy making in the EEC

doi:10.1016/0921-8009(92)90026-O

Ecological Economics

Volume 6, Issue 3, December 1992, Pages 211-233

https://doi.org/10.1016/0921-8009(92)90026-O Get rights and content

Abstract

Contrasting the very limited scientific evidence on the forest dieback issue with the sudden adoption of policies on air pollution decided in the FRG (1983–1984) and extended to the European Community (1985), we propose an interpretative framework for the real internalization process at work in what was tantamount to a social crisis for public opinion, the media and political actors. We conclude that open scientific controversies on some environmental issues (effects, causes, solutions) pave the way for some actors to use the issue for their own techno-industrial strategies quite alien to ecological constraints. In cases of very high uncertainties on impacts, it becomes impossible to apply conventional social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) as an optimizing tool. We propose to develop economic analysis as a negotiation language and to give pride of place to the value of learning time and to the crucial role of technological pluralism as a condition for flexibility in the future.

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Ecological economics and scientific controversies. Lessons from some recent policy making in the EEC

Abstract

Ecol. Econ.

Energy Policy

Ecol. Econ.

Ecol. Econ.

Annales

Environmental preservation, uncertainty, and irreversibility

Q.J. Econ.

Sunspots and cycles

Rev. Econ. Stud.

Les pluies acides en Europe

Futuribles

Environmental policy and the challenge to economic theory

Economists, Scientists and Environmental Catastrophe

Option value: an exposition and extension

Land Econ.

De quoi la forêt est-elle malade?

Recherches

Acidic precipitation research in France

The economics of coming spaceship Earth

Property rights, liability rules and environmental economics

J. Econ. Issues

Evolution des émissions de polluants atmosphéri-ques en France 1980–1988

Etudes Documentaires No. 92

Accounting for Slower Economic Growth — The United States in the 1970's

Convention and Common Knowledge

Rev. Econ.

Valeur d'option et flexibilité: de la rationalité substantielle á la rationalité procédurale

Autonomie socio-économique et externalisation de l'environnement: la théorie néo-classique mise en perspective

Econ. Appl.

Entre nature et société, les enjeux des irréversibilités dans la construction économique et sociale du champ de l'environnement

Investment decisions under uncertainty: the irreversibility effect

Am. Econ. Rev.