THE BREN SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT
at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Presents

A Conversation about Ecological Economics with

Richard Norgaard, Charles Perrings,
Matthew Kotchen and Ernst von Weizsäcker

Monday, May 5, 2008

Hosted by Bren Assistant Professor Matthew Kotchen and Bren Dean Ernst von Weizsäcker.

Event Summary

Two renowned ecological economists have been invited to the Bren school for a discussion with students and professors. Among the issues addressed will be how to view the difference, if there is any, between ecological and environmental economics. Consideration will be given to the implication for sustainability and substitutability, and the applicability of the disciplines in addressing and conceptualizing environmental problems. The discussion will touch on ecosystem services valuation, the challenge of just distribution posed by any economic paradigm, and other questions from the audience.

Richard Norgaard  
Richard B. Norgaard is Professor of Energy and Resources Group and of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his BA in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, his MS in agricultural economics from Oregon State University, and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1971. Among the founders of the field of ecological economics, Norgaard has focused his recent research on how environmental problems challenge scientific understanding and the policy process, how ecologists and economists understand systems differently, and how globalization affects environmental governance. Dr. Norgaard has served on numerous committees of the National Academy of Sciences and the former office of Technology Assessment, was a member of the U.S. Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, and served as President of the International Society for Ecological Economics.
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/erg/people/faculty/norgaard.shtml
 

Charles Perrings  
Charles Perrings was appointed Professor of Environmental Economics at Arizona State University in August 2005. His previous appointments include Professor of Environmental Economics and Environmental Management at the University of York, Professor of Economics at the University of California, Riverside, and Director of the Biodiversity Program of the Beijer Institute, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden, where he is a Fellow. Between 1995 and 2005, he was editor of the Cambridge University Press journal Environment and Development Economics, and he remains on the editorial board of this and several other journals covering environmental, resource, and ecological economics, as well as conservation ecology. He was formerly President of the International Society for Ecological Economics, which was formed to bring together the insights of the ecological and economic sciences to aid understanding and management of environmental problems.
http://www.public.asu.edu/~cperring/

Matthew Kotchen
Matthew Kotchen joined the Bren School in 2005 and holds an affiliated appointment in the Department of Economics at UCSB. His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of public and environmental economics. Much of his work focuses on voluntary approaches to environmental protection. Recent projects have investigated the effect of "green" markets on the provision of environmental public goods, participation in green-electricity programs, and voter referenda for open-space conservation. Ongoing research relates to the incentives for corporate social responsibility, volunteerism in National Parks, and the effect of daylight saving time on energy consumption. Kotchen held a previous appointment in the Department of Economics at Williams College, and he is currently a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Cambridge, Mass.

http://fiesta.bren.ucsb.edu/~kotchen/

Ernst von Weizsäcker
Ernst von Weizsäcker joined the Bren School as Dean in January 2006. Previously, he served as the policy director at the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development, director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, and president of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy. He is a member of the Club of Rome, a global think tank devoted to improving society, and he served on the World Commission on the Social Dimensions of Globalization. Later, he became a member of the Bundestag, the federal parliament of Germany, where he was appointed chairman of the Environmental Committee. He has also served as a professor of interdisciplinary biology and was the founding president of the University of Kassel in Germany. Von Weizsäcker has authored several influential books on the environment, including Earth Politics and Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use.
http://www.bren.ucsb.edu/people/Faculty/ernst_von_weizsacker.htm

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