Posts from — October 2009

Just in… Prof Elinor Ostrom has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Ostrom, from University of Indiana, USA, is the first female Laureate in Economic Sciences and will share the prize with Prof Oliver E. Williamson, from the University of California Berkeley, USA.

Ostrom was praised “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:

Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. [Read more →]

Article by Joshua E. Brown, University of Vermont, USA.

The most obvious fact about ecological economics is that, well, ecology comes before economics.

“For example,” says Joshua Farley, an economist at the University of Vermont, “without healthy ecosystems to regulate climate and rainfall and provide habitat for pollinators, agriculture would collapse.” Which makes it tough to sell cars.

Put another way, “we need economic production to survive, but we also need healthy ecosystems and the service they provide,” he says. No bees, no food, no trip to the grocery store. [Read more →]

Kofi A. Annan, President of the Global Humanitarian Forum, launched on 1 October a specially re-recorded version of Midnight Oil’s ‘Beds are Burning’ as a global musical petition to demand climate justice at the UN’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December. The song is also set to become the soundtrack of the Climate Justice movement.

Here is the video from Mr. Kofi Annan’s campaign for climate justice.

The song has been supported by over 60 international music stars and celebrities including Duran Duran, Mark Ronson, Jamie Cullum, Melanie Laurent, Marion Cotillard, Milla Jovovich, Fergie, Lily Allen, Manu Katché, Bob Geldof, Youssou N’Dour, Yannick Noah and many more. [Read more →]