A prerequisite step in our shift to an ecological economy—one that recognizes and undertakes to preserve the environmental and social foundation of the human economy—is a rethinking of concepts and goals for human beings and actions in the biophysical environment. We create an awareness of the condition of our biophysical environment and our relationship to it by developing and maintaining models in our mind. In our current modern world, this description of the environment is accomplished through scientific modeling, although alternative ways of describing reality exist in other societies, past and present, as Peter Timmerman noted in chapter 1. It has also been one of the many claims of standard economics that price represents an ideal measure or “metric”—anything that cannot be measured according to this metric is (temporarily) in outer darkness. Part of the alternative proposed by ecological economics is to present other metrics that incorporate aspects of the world that are underincorporated or unincorporated in current economic thinking and practice. Shifts in measurement accompany or prompt shifts in worldviews.
The current, widely shared scientific model of the environment—indeed, of reality—is continually updated through sensory feedback from the environment. The immense scale of our environmental concern and our scientific method of fact-based reasoning mean that a good part of this feedback is obtained through quantification. Quantification began its ascent in Western society during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which led to the advancement of science and technology thereafter (Crosby 1997; Frängsmyr, Heilbron, and Rider 1990). Nowadays, the quantitative toolkit ranges from simple counting to sophisticated instrument detection and statistical techniques, yielding data that is at times copious and abstruse.
The challenge of handling quantitative data is to transform them into useful information, then use this information to advance knowledge and inform human action. In other words, how do we interpret and use the data at hand in a meaningful way? The steps entailed in quantitative data analysis—from problem framing to study design, actual data collection and analysis, and finally to interpretation and synthesis with existing knowledge—require sound judgment on the part of the researcher. This latitude in quantitative data analysis for human judgment turns the skills and techniques involved into, as it were, an art.
Measuring and assessing the condition of the biosphere—a complex system—further complicates the matter of quantitative data analysis. It involves issues such as identification of key parameters for monitoring, managing multiple temporal and spatial scales, interpretation of measurements, and the construction and use of composite indicators. The use of measurement systems to monitor and rein in human impact on the biosphere requires the identification of thresholds, an act that is not without its ethical implications. Indeed, the “planetary boundaries” created by Rockström et al. (2009) is an example of the type of metrics that could be created for framing and directing our response to our environmental predicament.
The abstract modeling of the environment and quantification of environmental data should not distract us from the fact that the human individual and economy are embedded in the biophysical environment. As we rely on scientific methods, with their reductionist tendencies, to describe and understand the environment, we need to remain cognizant of the fact that human existence is inextricably linked to the environment—from our need for air, water, and food. Because human society is a subsystem of the environment, the condition of the former is tied to that of the latter, so ultimately we are concerned with the joint condition of the two.
A possible way of imagining this connection is through the concept of health. The health concept is commonplace in the context of humans and most people would have an understanding of it, at least from experiencing their own health or lack thereof. Beginning around 1990, the use of the health concept has been increasingly applied to ecological systems, especially in reference to their conceptualization as “ecosystems,” which gained a foothold in the scientific community at the same time. The use of health to describe the functioning of complex systems like ecosystems is appealing from an intuitive perspective, but it is problematic from a strictly scientific perspective. Health refers to a (perceived) state of being that is based on interpretation of information from an array of quantitative and qualitative indicators. However, due to variations in context and human judgment, no exact and universal definition of health exists. In other words, health is a connotative rather than a definitive concept, which calls for a circumspect and judicious approach. This means that we need to be cautious when using ecosystem health as a scientific concept and be cognizant and open to the multitude of possibilities to which ecosystems can evolve.
SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS
“Measurement of Essential Indicators in Ecological Economics,” by Mark S. Goldberg and Geoffrey Garver
The authors propose a methodological framework for measurements to support the development of indicators relevant to ecological economics, and they discuss the issues in developing and interpreting composite indicators. For indicators in ecological economics to accurately gauge progress and assess impacts, it is essential to understand what processes or factors (often referred to as “drivers”) underlie or are associated with the values they take. To fully appreciate these processes and interrelationships, sound scientific principles must be followed so that the measurement process leads to accurate values; that is, the measurements must be both valid (measure what they purport to measure) and reliable (the variability in the values obtained are sufficiently small to provide a meaningful interpretation). These principles apply to measuring both the key processes and their drivers. The authors discuss the elements that constitute their proposed methodological framework for measurements and indicators: the context of ethics, justice, and governance; the scope of parameters under consideration; the temporal and spatial scale; the commensurability of constituent measurements in forming a composite indicator; the nature and purpose of the measurement itself; and the issue of uncertainty and interactions of complex systems from which measurements are taken. They discuss the inherent problems in using indicators that are mixtures of disparate variables and recommend that indicators be used with great care and in limited circumstances.
“Boundaries and Indicators: Conceptualizing and Measuring Progress Toward an Economy of Right Relationship Constrained by Global Ecological Limits,” by Geoffrey Garver and Mark S. Goldberg
In their chapter, Garver and Goldberg discuss the complex considerations behind designing a new set of indicators for governance in a new, ecological economy—in particular, the issues of scale, distribution, and efficiency of the human economy. Using the concept of safe operating space and planetary boundaries developed by Rockström et al. (2009) and the premise of the right relationship between humans and the biosphere developed by Brown and Garver (2009) as the contextual framework, Garver and Goldberg focus on the issue of governance and argue that the planetary boundaries call for a governance regime using a more refined set of indicators. They propose ten features that these indicators for economic and ecological governance should possess. Three aspects of planetary boundaries—atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, nitrogen loading, and biodiversity—are discussed in detail to illustrate the process of developing indicators. Garver and Goldberg conclude with a call for an iterative approach to developing and using indicators to keep up with an evolving understanding of the planetary system and a dynamic governance context.
“Revisiting the Metaphor of Human Health for Assessing Ecological Systems and Its Application to Ecological Economics,” by Mark S. Goldberg, Geoffrey Garver, and Nancy E. Mayo
In this chapter, the authors discuss the notion of health as applied to humans and to ecosystems, and they explain how in both domains the state of health cannot be adequately defined or assessed using scientific terms and measures. They show that the notion of human health is elusive and the various definitions that have been attempted have serious shortcomings. Importantly, the myriad attributes and domains that make up the concept of human health cannot be measured uniquely in any individual, and there is no consensus as to how to uniquely define human health. Health goes beyond the internal signs reflected by physiological and pathological parameters measured by physicians, and even goes beyond the exteriorized signs of disability; and can even include the concept of “well-being,” and how a person “feels” about their health. Moreover, health is an evolving process, and individuals change in different ways through time. In short, human health in its entirety cannot be measured in a specific individual.
The authors thus conclude that defining ecosystem health by appealing to the analogy of human health is incorrect—and certainly incorrect when considering only physicians as diagnosticians and healers. Ecologists acting as physicians to diagnose and correct pathology are of course correct and essential. Ecologists have developed myriad indices to measure various attributes of ecosystems. In parallel with humans, it is unlikely that a finite set of indicators can be developed or measured to be able to claim that an ecosystem is “healthy.” More importantly, assessments of ecosystem function and states do not require a clear definition of ecosystem health. In particular, complex indices that combine elementary ones to measure ecosystem health cannot measure all of the dimensions in complex ecosystems, and the use of complex indicators must be benchmarked; claiming that an ecosystem is healthy based on these types of indices can be fraught with error. The authors conclude that using these indicators in ecological economics—especially in terms of monitoring the effects of human activities on ecosystems and species at the local, regional, and global levels—requires a judicious choice of objectives as to which indicators are to be measured for the purposes of remediation and for making statements of policy.
“Following in Aldo Leopold’s Footsteps: Humans-in-Ecosystem and Implications for Ecosystem Health,” by Qi Feng Lin and James W. Fyles
In this chapter, Lin and Fyles retrace the thinking of Aldo Leopold on conceiving humans as plain members and citizens of the biotic community, perceiving the intrinsic character of the land as “land health,” and considering how these two ideas led to his famous “land ethic.” Leopold’s land ethic urges people to expand their relationship with land beyond economics to include “integrity, stability, and beauty.” The authors then apply his thinking to the context of ecosystem and ecosystem health by considering humans as part of ecosystems, and the resulting implications for ecosystem health. With this thinking, the authors return to Leopold by studying one of his essays in A Sand County Almanac (1949). In “A Mighty Fortress,” Leopold mentioned how his woodlot, having been visited by various tree diseases, became a rich habitat for wildlife. This essay underscores the multiplicity of perspectives in an ecosystem and its complex nature, which in turn challenges humans to learn the richness and meaning of the concept of health. Put another way, and echoing the view of the previous chapter, health cannot be adequately portrayed by using only medical science. The authors conclude with a call for supplementing the scientific, rational mode of perceiving reality and human action with thinking from the arts and the humanities.
REFERENCES
Brown, Peter G., and Geoffrey Garver. 2009. Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Crosby, Alfred W. 1997. The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250–1600. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Frängsmyr, Tore, J. L. Heilbron, and Robin E. Rider, eds. 1990. The Quantifying Spirit in the 18th Century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Leopold, Aldo. 1949. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rockström, Johan, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Asa Persson, F. Stuart Chapin, III, Eric F. Lambin, Timothy M. Lenton, Marten Scheffer, Carl Folke, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Bjorn Nykvist, Cynthia A. de Wit, Terry Hughes, Sander van der Leeuw, Henning Rodhe, Sverker Sorlin, Peter K. Snyder, Robert Costanza, Uno Svedin, Malin Falkenmark, Louise Karlberg, Robert W. Corell, Victoria J. Fabry, James Hansen, Brian Walker, Diana Liverman, Katherine Richardson, Paul Crutzen, and Jonathan A. Foley. 2009. “Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity.” Ecology and Society 14 (2): 32.