Oldal 49 [49]
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SCHOOLS OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT ON ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY 47 all life. It is also an important question whether — and how — the interests of unborn future generations should be taken into consideration in our present decisions.‘ Alternative economists have been following the science of physics with great attention since the 1960s. Its most pertinent field for the economy is thermodynamics, which is aptly suited for the characterization of the basic physical interactions between the economic process and the natural environment. One of the first to realize the economic importance of the laws of thermodynamics was Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, who illustrated the two main laws with the following vivid example. Imagine an hour-glass. As it is a closed system, no single grain of sand can enter or leave the glass container. The number of grains of sand is constant; no grain can be created or destroyed. This is like the first law of thermodynamics: material, or energy, cannot be created or destroyed. Although the number of sand grains is constant, their distribution constantly changes: the lower chamber is filled as the upper is emptied. This can be compared to the second law of thermodynamics: entropy (the grains in the lower compartment) incessantly grows. The grains in the upper compartment (low entropy) are working like water is in a waterfall. The grains in the lower compartment (high entropy) have lost their capacity to work. However, this hour-glass can’t be turned around: wasted energy cannot be recycled, unless more energy is invested (Georgescu-Roegen 1971, quoted by Daly — Cobb 1989: 11-12). The realm of the economy is hardly an exception from this general law. On the basis of the first fundamental law of thermodynamics, it can be declared that the increment of any growth in the production of physical goods in the economy has a dual effect: on the one hand, the amount of material and energy extracted from nature increases accordingly; on the other, the amount of waste emitted into the environment also grows by the same measure. It remains for the waste processing capacity of the environment to assimilate it (Nijkamp 1977: 12, quoted by Barbier 1989: 52). The second law demonstrates that energy becomes included in the economic processes in the form of low entropy (this type of energy is usable for mechanical work), then waste heat and other pollution leave the processes as output (high entropy). Thus, the flow of energy and material through the economy (throughput) becomes an important factor (Boulding 1966). Indispensable low-entropy is available only from two sources: fossils and minerals condensed under the ground, and radiation from the sun. Mineral stocks are obviously limited, although the pace of their usage largely depends on human decisions. The stock of energy from solar radiation is practically unbounded, but its flow is limited. Solar energy and other renewable energy resources are limited by the volume of available solar radiation and by the growth potential of plants and animals. This implies a natural constraint on economic growth. However, economic growth may exceed — at least temporarily — this limit by utilizing our low-entropy reserves which stored up solar energy absorbed earlier. The throughput of energy (or social metabolism, see Dombi, 2022) sustains or increases order in the human economy, but — by depletion and pollution — it generates greater disorder in the rest of the natural world (Daly 1979: 74-76). ‘Neoclassical environmental economics also addresses the issue of future generations and promotes an adequately chosen discount rate (Pearce — Turner 1990: 211-225). However, this concept devalues the future compared to the present.
