Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
would help achieve a greater understanding of how economic growth actually
occurs, and the role ecological impacts entail on life-support systems of the Earth.
Neither traditional mistrust nor the suspicion of biased ecological or economic
determinism should prevent the necessary rapprochement between economic and
environmental history, which is being opened up by the development of ecological
economics. In order to put aside any suspicion about causal primacy, it is worth
distinguishing from the beginning those explanations that tell us what growth is or
how it happens from those that explain why growth occurs.
122
The socio-metabolic
research on long-term transitions in the interaction between nature and society may
signi
cantly contribute to enhance the understanding of what economic growth is,
and how it takes place. Nevertheless, this would leave space for other dimensions,
such as institutional settings or ruling actors needed to explain why growth
happens, by whom, and for what purpose. Thus, the development of this new
biophysical standpoint does not mean that we can afford to neglect institutional,
social, cultural and political factors.
123
On the contrary, as Joan Martinez Alier has
written,
far from naturalising history, the introduction of ecology into the expla-
nation of human history historialises ecology. This is because human ecology, that
is, the relationship between human societies and nature, cannot be comprehended
without an understanding of the history of human beings and their con
“
.
124
”
fl
icts
Acknowledgments This essay has been written in the framework of the linked research projects
on Sustainable farm systems: long-term socioecological metabolism in western agriculture funded
by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Spanish one
HAR2012-38920-C02-02 directed by Enric Tello at the University of Barcelona. We thank Leah
Temper for her careful revision of the English version.
Glossary
EROI
Energy returns on energy inputs
MEFA
Material and Energy Flow Analysis
HANPP
Human Appropriation of the ecological Net Primary Production
EUROSTAT
The Statistical Of
ce of the European Communities located in
Luxembourg. Its main responsibilities are to provide statistical
information to the institutions of the European Union (EU) and
to promote the harmonisation of statistical methods across its
member states
122
North (
1999
).
123
Teich et al. (
1997
) and S
ö
rlin and Warde (
2009
).
124
Mart
í
nez Alier (
1998
).
