Czech Brian
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, National Capital Region, 7054 Haycock Road, Room 411, Falls Church, VA 22043, USA.
Conserv Biol. 2008 Dec;22(6):1389-98. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01089.x.
The conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation is understood in portions of academia and sometimes acknowledged in political circles. Nevertheless, there is not a unified response. In political and policy circles, the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is posited to solve the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. In academia, however, the EKC has been deemed fallacious in macroeconomic scenarios and largely irrelevant to biodiversity. A more compelling response to the conflict is that it may be resolved with technological progress. Herein I review the conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation in the absence of technological progress, explore the prospects for technological progress to reconcile that conflict, and provide linguistic suggestions for describing the relationships among economic growth, technological progress, and biodiversity conservation. The conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation is based on the first two laws of thermodynamics and principles of ecology such as trophic levels and competitive exclusion. In this biophysical context, the human economy grows at the competitive exclusion of nonhuman species in the aggregate. Reconciling the conflict via technological progress has not occurred and is infeasible because of the tight linkage between technological progress and economic growth at current levels of technology. Surplus production in existing economic sectors is required for conducting the research and development necessary for bringing new technologies to market. Technological regimes also reflect macroeconomic goals, and if the goal is economic growth, reconciliatory technologies are less likely to be developed. As the economy grows, the loss of biodiversity may be partly mitigated with end-use innovation that increases technical efficiency, but this type of technological progress requires policies that are unlikely if the conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation (and other aspects of environmental protection) is not acknowledged.
经济增长与生物多样性保护之间的冲突在部分学术界有所认识，有时在政治圈子中也得到承认。然而，并没有统一的应对措施。在政治和政策领域，环境库兹涅茨曲线（EKC）被认为可以解决经济增长与环境保护之间的冲突。然而，在学术界，EKC在宏观经济情景中被认为是错误的，并且在很大程度上与生物多样性无关。对这一冲突更有说服力的回应是，它可能通过技术进步来解决。在此，我回顾了在没有技术进步的情况下经济增长与生物多样性保护之间的冲突，探讨了技术进步调和该冲突的前景，并提供了描述经济增长、技术进步和生物多样性保护之间关系的语言建议。经济增长与生物多样性保护之间的冲突基于热力学前两条定律以及生态原理，如营养级和竞争排斥。在这种生物物理背景下，人类经济总体上以非人类物种的竞争排斥为代价而增长。通过技术进步来调和这一冲突尚未实现且不可行，因为在当前技术水平下，技术进步与经济增长紧密相连。将新技术推向市场所需的研发工作需要现有经济部门的剩余生产。技术体制也反映宏观经济目标，如果目标是经济增长，那么调和性技术就不太可能被开发出来。随着经济增长，生物多样性的丧失可能会通过提高技术效率的终端使用创新得到部分缓解，但这种技术进步需要一些政策，而如果经济增长与生物多样性保护（以及环境保护的其他方面）之间的冲突得不到承认，这些政策就不太可能出台。
