What's in a Name?

I've been thinking about changing the name of this blog for quite a while. I never intended to steal the trademark name "Ecological Economics" from its rightful owners. Instead, my hope was that I might draw a few key players from that arena into the blogosphere to add voice to ecological economic issues and policy matters. That effort failed just as did my similar effort in matters of forests and US national forest management. But in failure, at least I found the will to share some information.

And I probably did help a few folks gain insight into the cross-disciplinary conversation that was, and hopefully still is the foundation for ecological economics. The new name is Ecology and Economics, subtitled "Cross-Disciplinary Thoughts". At least that's the name until I realize that I've stolen the name from someone else. Likely this blog will be mine alone. Maybe, if ever I get over my anger with the American-led mismanagement of the world's financial systems and continued mismanagement of US national forests, else find more energy than I now have, I may add more here.

For these other matters, see my:

Economic Dreams - Nightmares
Forest Policy - Forest Practice
Adaptive Forest Management

Comments

[Muriel Strand]

economics will certainly become more ecological when maslow's hierarchy of needs is fully incorporated into the theory. trademarking of intangible names would inevitably belong to a different category of need than trademarks of tangible handicraft items.

(btw, results that don't fulfill your hopes are not necessarily failures.)

[Dave Iverson]

Thanks Muriel,

I know that "results that don't fulfill your hopes are not necessarily failures". Thanks for reminding me.

And I will likely begin to write here again relatively soon. As for Maslow, I need sometime to pick up on his idea of "self actualization" as a contextual thing where it isn't all about self-interest self actualization, but rather working in the context of greater societal purposes that themselves are emergent.

I have been thinking of changing the name of my blog for quite some time, since at least last I looked the ecological economics community was populated with too many "quants" and would-be economists that have been poisoned by neoclassical economics nonsense. Not that all economists trained in the neoclassical tradition fit Dobson's "Mad Hatter" profile, but too many do.

[Steven Earl Salmony]

Dear Dave Iverson, Thanks for saying things almost everyone already knows but few will talk about. Perhaps the greedmongering "bubble barons" of Wall Street have deceptively 'engineered' cancerous financial products that are now the scourge of the real global economy. Is it possible that biggest problems the human community faces today are on one hand blasts of magma and ash exploding out of the volcanic crater in Iceland and on the other, the monstrous toxic inventions of racketeers on Wall Street that have exploded within the bowels of countries such as Greece and resulted in the cratering of the global political economy? Even though the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe among us are not capable of setting off actual volcanic eruptions, these racketeers have demonstrated the readiness, willingness and ability to blow up the world's political economy, I suppose, and award themselves bonuses for their scandalous behavior.

Sincerely,

Steve

[Steven Earl Salmony]

Everyone is going to have to speak out. In the last decade the collusion, corruption and cover-up of massive fraud in the global economy by greedy, self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe among us as well as their willful blindness and elective mutism in the face of the rampant dissipation of natural resources, relentless pollution of the environment and reckless degradation of Earth's ecology is as unconscionable as it is unforgiveable.

The fulmination of irresponsible leadership in the first decade of Century XXI gave rise to the cratering of the world's political economy and to the irreversible destabilization of the Earth's climate. From 2000 to 2008, whatsoever was politically correct, economically expedient, socially convenient and culturally prescribed was automatically espoused loudly as "the truth". Ideological idiocy prevailed over science. Greed ruled the world. Intellectual honesty, personal accountability, moral courage and doing the right thing were eschewed. Gag rules were enforced. As a consequence, the human community was persuaded to inadvertently make a colossal mess of our planetary home, Earth. Everyone could see what was happening, but few people were willing to speak out. No one with power listened to those who did speak out about what was observed occurring around us. Millions of people were encouraged to engage in conspicuous per-capita overconsumption and scandalous individual hoarding of resources; in megabillion-dollar pyramid schemes and unsustainable large-scale industrial enterprises.

Nothing can happen until many people speak truth to the greedmongers and power-hungry. New leadership and a new direction such as the one presented by President Barack Obama need to be freely chosen and actively sustained.

[Steven Earl Salmony]

Dave Iverson is speaking out loudly and clearly to the family of humanity about what people somehow need to hear, see and understand: the reckless dissipation of Earth's limited resources, the relentless degradation of the planet's frangible environment, and the approaching destruction of the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by the human species, when taken together, appear to be proceeding synergistically at a breakneck pace toward the precipitation of a catastrophic ecological wreckage of some sort unless, of course, the world's gigantic, ever expanding global economy continues to speed headlong toward the monolithic 'WALL' called "unsustainability" at which point the runaway economy crashes before Earth's ecology is collapsed.

Many scientists have remarked eloquently on the collapse of civilizations. The global challenge we appear to face today, one that singular and unimaginable, is that the collapse of human civilization in Century XXI is not simply the end of another human civilization. What is occurring now is likely not only the collapse of a human civilization but also the human-driven destruction of the natural resource base, the ecology, and biodiversity of Earth.

Concern for the future of life as we know it and for the Earth as a fit place for human habitation by the children leads me to point to the great value I attach to the open discussion of the global predicament looming before the human family. We simply must make good use of the best available science to adequately explain the population dynamics leading to the collapse of our civilization. Without such knowledge, I cannot see how necessary changes in the behavioral repertoire of humankind can be made.

Is there doubt in the mind of anyone in the E and E community that the future will ultimately be brighter for children everywhere if people choose now to consume and hoard less; to protect, preserve and share more; and to effectively check the unbridled increase of unsustainable large-scale production capabilities as well as to humanely regulate the propagation of the human species?