Broader ecological flow model updated
-
Upload
benjamin-leroy -
Category
Documents
-
view
249 -
download
2
description
Transcript of Broader ecological flow model updated
Product Market
Economic Resource
Market
$ (Revenues)
$ (Wages, Rent, Interest,
and Pro�ts)$
$Goods and Services Goods and Services
Land, labor, Capital, and Entrepreneurial ability
Land, labor, Capital, and Entrepreneurial ability
Biosphere
Outputs: Wastes and pollution(to sinks)
Input: Natural Resources and environmental services (Sources)
Solar Energy
BroaDer Circular Flow MoDelHarris
Why Include the Ecosystem? Sources and Sinks Explained Failure of the Traditional Model
Economics 12Pennington
Fall 2011
Households/ Consumers
Businesses/Firms
“living our lives in such a way that we are not undermining the ability of the future generations to lead their lives, to sustain their needs”. ~The Brundtland Commission, convened by the United Nations
Sustainability
The standard model is inaccurate because it suggests that the real �ow (resources and goods and services) and the counter monetary �ow allow the cycle to be self perpetuat-ing and not need other inputs, which this is incorrect because the cycle needs energy inputs and waste/pollution �ow out the system. In our current economic system the limits that our natural environment has are completely ignored; the system assumes that they are limitless as a resource and limitless in its capacity to absorb our waste.
The inclusion of the ecosystem allows use to see the economy as part of a larger structure. Environmental economists taking a holistic approach by including the economic cycle with the environmental cycles like the carbon, nitrogen, water and life, and sources/sink cycle. This holistic approach focuses more on total energy �ow and can measure carrying capacity as well as deliver the basic concept. Including the ecosystem also allows more valued to be placed on Sustainability.
A source is the place or compartment from which a substance comes while a sink is the place or process that takes the substance out of circulation. For example, young growing forests are a carbon sink, while the burning of fossil fuels is a carbon source. ~Australian Academy of Science
Waste Heat