Rees William E
School of Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Environ Monit Assess. 2003 Jul-Aug;86(1-2):29-45. doi: 10.1023/a:1024098417023.
This paper argues on both theoretical and empirical grounds that, beyond a certain point, there is an unavoidable conflict between economic development (generally taken to mean 'material economic growth') and environmental protection. Think for a moment of natural forests, grasslands, marine estuaries, salt marshes, and coral reefs; and of arable soils, aquifers, mineral deposits, petroleum, and coal. These are all forms of 'natural capital' that represent highly-ordered self-producing ecosystems or rich accumulations of energy/matter with high use potential (low entropy). Now contemplate despoiled landscapes, eroding farmlands, depleted fisheries, anthropogenic greenhouse gases, acid rain, poisonous mine tailings and toxic synthetic compounds. These all represent disordered systems or degraded forms of energy and matter with little use potential (high entropy). The main thing connecting these two states is human economic activity. Ecological economics interprets the environment-economy relationship in terms of the second law of thermodynamics. The second law sees economic activity as a dissipative process. From this perspective, the production of economic goods and services invariably requires the consumption of available energy and matter. To grow and develop, the economy necessarily 'feeds' on sources of high-quality energy/matter first produced by nature. This tends to disorder and homogenize the ecosphere, The ascendance of humankind has consistently been accompanied by an accelerating rate of ecological degradation, particularly biodiversity loss, the simplification of natural systems and pollution. In short, contemporary political rhetoric to the contrary, the prevailing growth-oriented global development paradigm is fundamentally incompatible with long-term ecological and social sustainability. Unsustainability is not a technical nor economic problem as usually conceived, but rather a state of systemic incompatibility between a economy that is a fully-contained, growing, dependent sub-system of a non-growing ecosphere. Potential solutions fly in the face of contemporary development trends and cultural values.
本文从理论和实证两方面论证，超过一定程度后，经济发展（通常被理解为“物质经济增长”）与环境保护之间存在不可避免的冲突。不妨思考一下天然森林、草原、河口、盐沼和珊瑚礁；还有耕地、含水层、矿藏、石油和煤炭。这些都是“自然资本”的形式，代表着高度有序的自我生产生态系统或具有高利用潜力（低熵）的丰富能量/物质积累。现在想想被破坏的景观、侵蚀的农田、枯竭的渔业资源、人为产生的温室气体、酸雨、有毒的矿渣和有毒的合成化合物。这些都代表着无序系统或能量与物质的退化形式，几乎没有利用潜力（高熵）。连接这两种状态的主要因素是人类经济活动。生态经济学从热力学第二定律的角度解释环境与经济的关系。热力学第二定律将经济活动视为一个耗散过程。从这个角度来看，经济商品和服务的生产总是需要消耗可用的能量和物质。为了增长和发展，经济必然首先以自然最初产生的高质量能量/物质来源为“食”。这往往会使生态圈无序并使其同质化，人类的崛起一直伴随着生态退化速度的加快，尤其是生物多样性丧失、自然系统简化和污染。简而言之，尽管当代政治言论与此相反，但当前以增长为导向的全球发展范式从根本上与长期生态和社会可持续性不相容。不可持续性并非通常所认为的技术或经济问题，而是一种系统性的不相容状态，即一个作为非增长生态圈的完全封闭、不断增长、相互依存的子系统的经济体与生态圈之间的不相容。潜在的解决方案与当代发展趋势和文化价值观背道而驰。
