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Points out that sustainability as such does not provide a clearcut guide to policy. First one has to decide what is to be sustained. If this is agreed, it must be in an operational from. However, difficulties may still emerge since opinions may differ about how to achieve. This is illustrated by differences in the views of economists about how sustainable development is to be achieved. Orthodox economists stress the importance of the accumulation of man-made capital to achieve this end whereas neo-Malthusians stress the importance of conserving natural resource and environmental capital. Both take an anthropocentric point of view. For political reasons the neo-Malthusian has had little support but it may eventually turn out to be correct. Economics is concerned with reducing economic scarcity and economists have traditionally suggested four main ways of doing this of which economic growth is one. However, neo-Malthusian economists believe that this may not be a sustainable strategy – it may result in future poverty. It should be noted that economic systems are embedded in social and natural systems and depend on these. Economic sustainability depends on the sustainability of these other systems. So from this point of view, it is just one of several bottom lines. Values must be considered in relation to sustainability. Economics is completely anthropocentric in its approach. Therefore, economic approaches to conservation and sustainability can be at odds with the values of deep ecologists or those willing to accord rights to other sentient beings or ecosystems independent of human wishes, or those who want to make use of value judgments other than those based on the measuring rod of money. Consequently economics evaluation is sometimes ineffective in resolving social conflict, including conflict about what should be sustained. As a rule economics alone should not be the final arbiter of social decisions. It is a part (often an important part) of the social evaluation process but not the bottom line, or just one of many lines.

This paper conveniently skips any controversy associated with the science of climate change. On the assumption that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change that is detrimental to humanity, the paper focuses on some economic dimensions of the issue which seem to be poorly understood by Australian media commentators, policy analysts, interest groups and the political parties. Using a neoclassical welfare economics framework the paper explores the costs and benefits of greenhouse gas abatement with reference to the findings of the Stern Report, the setting of greenhouse gas targets by Australian political parties, the danger of the government “picking winners” and the emerging carbon theory of value. The paper concludes with a brief review of the relative merits of a carbon tax and a cap and trade approach. Key Words: This paper conveniently skips any controversy associated with the science of climate change. On the assumption that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change that is detrimental to humanity, the paper focuses on some economic dimensions of the issue which seem to be poorly understood by Australian media commentators, policy analysts, interest groups and the political parties. Using a neoclassical welfare economics framework the paper explores the costs and benefits of greenhouse gas abatement with reference to the findings of the Stern Report, the setting of greenhouse gas targets by Australian political parties, the danger of the government “picking winners” and the emerging carbon theory of value. The paper concludes with a brief review of the relative merits of a carbon tax and a cap and trade approach.

Recent extreme weather events have resulted in an ongoing discussion on the issues of land use and compensation payments within Austrian agriculture. Building on a functional evaluation system for agricultural lands as developed within the Interreg IIIB project “ILUP”, the national project “Agriculture and Flooding” has as its goal to classify the flood-protection contribution and flood sensitivity of agricultural lands. This, in turn, enables the recommendation of targeted measures for potentially improving flood situations, as well as an estimate of their implementation costs. In addition to the digital soil map, other fundamental sources used for the project are the digital flood risk map, IACS land-use data and works by the Institute for Land and Water Management Research. Reference values and marginal returns sourced from the Federal Institute of Agricultural Economics also flow into the cost estimates for the recommended combination. The results will contribute to an understanding of the multifunctionality of agricultural lands and to the setting of priorities on a regional scale regarding packaged flood-prevention and damage-minimization. However, the results at hand can only serve as one step toward regional flood protection projects, whose development will require the cooperation of all interest groups.

Climate change is one of the preeminent policy issues of our day, and the social cost of carbon (SCC) is one of the foremost tools for determining the socially optimal policy response. The SCC is estimated using Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), of which Nordhaus’ DICE is the oldest and one of the best respected. These numerical models capture the various steps in the climate and economic processes that translate a marginal unit of CO2 emissions into economic damage. While accuracy at each of these steps is necessary to precisely estimate the SCC, correct calibrating the climate damage function, which translates a temperature change into a percentage change in GDP, is critical. Calibration of the damage function determines which climate damages are included and excluded from the cost of carbon. Traditionally, Nordhaus calibrated the DICE damage function using a global damage estimate calculated by aggregating a series of region-sector specific damage estimates (Nordhaus and Boyer, 2000; Nordhaus, 2008). However, in DICE-2013, Nordhaus moved to calibrating the DICE damage function using a meta-analysis at the global scale (Nordhaus and Sztorc, 2013). This paper critiques this meta-analysis approach as it is currently applied and re-estimates the DICE-2013 damage function using up-to-date meta-analysis techniques to more accurately reflect climate damages and the uncertainty underlying them. This paper finds that DICE-2013 damage function significantly under-estimates climate damages by a factor of two to three. This is a working paper.

Climate change could affect the costs and returns of livestock production by altering the thermal environment of animals thereby affecting animal health, reproduction, and the efficiency by which livestock convert feed into retained products (especially meat and milk). In the United States, concentrated livestock operations are located in a variety of climatic regions, suggesting that the industry could adapt to future changes in temperature and weather patterns resulting from global warming. However, this adaption could be costly. We use nationally representative data on dairy producers coupled with finely-scaled climate data to empirically examine how producers’ costs, returns, and production systems vary across U.S. regions as a function of the local climate.

Despite the modest regional consumption of organic products, Sicily is one of the most important European regions in surface area per number of companies active in organic farming. The University of Palermo, as early as 2000, to promote the development and success in this industry, the Faculty of Agriculture, introduced two major degree programs in "Organic Farming". The objective of these courses is to train graduates who are technically capable of supporting the organic farmers market, to promote and facilitate the expansion of the consumption of organic products, and to create employment opportunities for young graduates. At the end of 2009, in the area of these activities, a training and research program involved numerous students in the creation of an "joint consumption" association whose purpose is the expansion of the consumption of organic products through the enhancement of a direct relationship with small organic farms who would be unlikely to penetrate large markets, or have relationships with large distribution networks. The project aims to assess the ability of the students of the Faculty to transmit the knowledge acquired in the program, and to investigate the relative issues regarding the new phenomenon emerging in recent years in Italy, represented by the spread of various forms of ethically-conscious consumption groups called “Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (GAS)” or Solidarity Purchase Groups.

Summarises some of the predicted natural consequences of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Changes in temperature, climates, physical and chemical impacts on the biosphere as well as biodiversity loss are considered. Then some of the expected social and economic consequences of global warming are discussed. Subjects considered are the impacts of global warming on bio-industries and social conditions, the economic costs of greenhouse gas emissions and the effects of climate change. Attention subsequently turns to the environmental Kuznets curve and the inappropriate use of the relationship. For example, it is stressed that reducing the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions in relation to GDP does not necessarily reduce total greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, even if they are reduced, greenhouse gases can continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Some suggestions are then made about how the global warming problem might be addressed.

Policies aimed at conserving energy support energy independence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and benefit consumers. In contrast, support for corn ethanol production raises world commodity prices and pressures the land and water base, as occurred in the U.S. during the plow-out of the seventies. Today, much of the deforestation/sodbusting and the resulting release of hundreds of millions of metric tons of greenhouse gas occurs in tropical countries, like Indonesia, which is the third largest source of greenhouse gases in the world. Increased concern over global warming, sea rise, and threats to life on planet earth could lead to changes in policy in the U.S. and in Europe toward more support for conservation.

Bioenergy enterprises have been granted an official role in the UK in order to make a significant contribution to sustainability targets and yet our understanding of attitudes amongst farmers and rural entrepreneurs to these enterprises is yet to be fully understood. Financial support, electricity tariffs, the availability of advice and the profit foregone from other enterprises have all fluctuated. The level of adoption of the new technology is not as advanced as in other EU countries. This study seeks to discover why this could be by exploring the entrepreneurial, financial and motivational environments that bioenergy adopters are working in. The following hypotheses have been developed: 1. The entrepreneurial environment for bioenergy development in the UK is sympathetic to the needs of this emerging industry; 2. Adopters of bioenergy are positively motivated towards the venture; and 3. Farm based bioenergy enterprises make a positive contribution to overall farm business viability. The UK government is looking to rural entrepreneurs to play a role in this through the adoption of bioenergy technologies which can contribute towards achieving the country’s energy and climate change targets and at the same time offer potential farm enterprises that could be viable long-term contributors to farm enterprise sustainability (NFU, 2008). This study extends and applies the concepts of entrepreneurship environment and country institutional profiles to a specific domain of entrepreneurship in the land based bioenergy sector in the UK.