Many believe economic growth is incompatible with ecological preservation. Green Capital challenges this argument by shifting our focus away from the scarcity of raw materials and toward the deterioration of the great natural regulatory functions (such as the climate system, the water cycle, and biodiversity). Although we can find substitutes for scarce natural resources, we cannot replace a natural regulatory system, which is incredibly complex. It is therefore critical that we introduce a new price into the economy that measures the costs of damage to these regulatory functions. This change in perspective justifies such innovations as the carbon tax, which addresses not the scarcity of carbon but the inability of the atmosphere to absorb large amounts of carbon without upsetting the climate system. Brokering a sustainable peace between ecology and the economy, Green Capital describes a range of valuation schemes and their contribution to the goals of green capitalism, proposing a new approach to natural resources that benefits both businesses and the environment.
Introduction: The Color of Growth 1. Growth: A Historical Accident? 2. The Spaceship Problem: An Optimal Population Size? 3. Degrowth: Good Questions, Bad Answers 4. Introducing the Environment into the Calculation of Wealth 5. "Natural Capital" Revisited 6. Hotelling: Beyond the Wall of Scarcity 7. Nature Has No Price: How Then Is the Cost of Its Degradation to Be Measured? 8. Beyond Hotelling: Natural Capital as a Factor Required for Growth 9. Water, the Shepherd, and the Owner: A Choice of Green Growth Models 10. How Much Is Your Genome Worth? 11. The Enhancement of Biodiversity: Managing Access, Pricing Usage 12. Climate Change: The Challenges of Carbon Pricing 13. International Climate Negotiations 14. The "Energy Transition": Not Enough or Too Much Oil and Gas? 15. The Inescapable Question of the Price of Energy 16. Nuclear Energy: A Rising-Cost Technology 17. Growth-Generating Innovations 18. Planning or the Market: What Are the Catalysts? 19. European Strategy: Jump Out of the Warm Water! Conclusion: Green Capital, Green Capitalism? Notes Index
