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You Can’t Eat GNP

Economics as if Ecology Mattered

Contributors

By Eric Davidson

Formats and Prices

Price

$19.99

Price

$25.99 CAD

Format

Trade Paperback

Format:

Trade Paperback $19.99 $25.99 CAD

In this lively, concise, and hard-hitting book, Eric Davidson makes available to readers the exciting new ideas of ecological economists, who have been revolutionizing and greening the once “dismal science.” Redefining economic concepts to allow for the primacy of our water, air, soil, and forests, he reveals the necessary steps to a genuine, rather than illusory, prosperity. Most estimates of wealth today are based upon gross domestic product, and many economists even see future wealth being created free of the constraints set by natural resources. Eric Davidson, scientist at the famed Woods Hole Research Center, calls such thinking “Marie Antoinette economics” and reveals its grave underlying fallacies. In valuing land or forests, for instance, we tend to discount their future value for our own children; in analyzing costs and benefits, the price of these natural resources upon which we ultimately depend is usually wrong; and damages to these resources are seen as “externalities.” Davidson exposes these fallacies and offers a blueprint for a truly sustainable economy.

On Sale
Apr 5, 2001
Page Count
272 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780738204871

Eric Davidson

About the Author

Eric A. Davidson, Ph.D. is a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center.

Learn more about this author