Professional paper
SUSTAINABILITY, NATURAL CAPITAL AND EFFICIENCY AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE IN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Velimir Pravdić
; Ruđer Bošković Institute, Zagreb
Abstract
Education for a sustainable future must have defined basic terms, before it can count on success. In this sense the implementation of sustainability, of sustainable use of capital stocks, and, unfortunately of sustainable development, depends on the existence of clear ideas. The paper deals with some recent publications in the open literature, mostly by US nd UK economists. The concept of strong and weak sustainability is exemplified through the use of capital stocks of man–made, natural, human, and cultural kind. A discussionis also presented on the three basic questions pertaining to sustainability: the when?, what system?, and how long? The problem of sustainability is shown to be related to the problem of prediction, of which neither the natural nor the socio–economic sciences have a successful record. There are many opinions that the unpredictabilities are a consequence of inherent uncertainties, to which basic sciences have no proper answer.
Finally the problem of efficiency is briefly discussed. Following Daly (1994) it is shown that the four classes of efficiency measures, the service, maintenance, growth, and ecosystem efficiencies, require a through understanding of the ecosystem/socio–economic relation for proper use in consequential action.
Keywords
biological evolution; education for a sustainable future; environmental efficiency; socio–economic evolution; strong and weak sustainability; sustainable development
Hrčak ID:
141629
URI
Publication date:
15.1.1998.
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