Free

Economics for Environmentalists: ENVS 620

Welcome to Economics for Environmentalists

Course Information

Day/Time: Monday 2:45 – 5:30 PM
Office Hours: Monday 1:00 – 2:30 PM or 5:45 – 7:00 PM (by request)
Classroom: H 1269 SGW

Weekly Lessons

Important Dates

Last day to register: Monday, January 23, 2023
Last day to withdraw (refund): Monday, January 23, 2023
Last day to discontinue (no refund): Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Last day of in-class testing: Thursday, April 6, 2023
Final exams: April 20- May 2, 2023

Territorial Acknowledgement

I acknowledge that Concordia University is located on unceded Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we gather today. Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diverse population of Indigenous and other peoples. We respect the continued connections with the past, present and future in our ongoing relationships with Indigenous and other peoples within the Montreal community. (Indigenous Directions Leadership Group, Feb. 16, 2017)

Course Overview

This course considers one of the most serious problems facing our global civilization: the on-going conflict between economic activity and the bio-physical world upon which all human activity ultimately depends. The course explains the basic theoretical framework most economists use to describe economic activities and the relationship between these activities and the natural world.

Understanding the logical apparatus of economics theory shows why market forces and environmental integrity are often in conflict and why economic arguments dominate environmental policy debates at both national and international levels.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, students will learn how to…

Understand how social and ecological economics can be used to identify the causes and consequences of environmental problems and offer solutions to address these problems.
Develop a critical understanding of a plurality of economic approaches in relation to environmental problems.
Communicate the history and philosophies of traditional, social and ecological economics.
Use the tools and language of ecological economics to explain contemporary environmental issues and concrete real-world cases.
Apply diverse economic approaches to imagine and create ethical economic conditions.
Move beyond understandings of weak sustainability towards more transformative approaches.
Incorporate social justice and decolonial perspectives in understanding social and ecological economics.
Perform action research to incorporate ontological approaches in creating new economic possibilities.
Understand how to re-embed economies into society and the biosphere.
Identify planetary boundaries and ecological crises.
Comprehend degrowth economic perspectives.
Understand doughnut economics.
Identify multiple forms of value and understand how to compare conflicting theories of value.
Recognize and understand desirable, viable and achievable alternatives to neo-liberal capitalism.
Articulate well-developed critiques of contemporary economics and prevailing economic systems.

Instructional Method

This course will be given in person and run as a seminar. Each class will begin with a short lecture and discussion led by Erik Chevrier, Ph.D. He will introduce themes, provide additional examples and/or offer critical perspectives related to the weekly topics but not covered in the readings. Beginning January 30^th, two students per class will each lead a 45-minute seminar by providing a presentation and facilitating a discussion. All students are expected to read the required texts before class and engage with each other through interactive activities and critical discussions. Students will be encouraged to perform community-service learning, experiential-learning and/or action-research for their course project. However, students can also opt for a literature review or another type of research project.

Required Course Materials

Students are required to complete the weekly readings before coming to class. Some weeks have more readings than others. For some weeks, Erik Chevrier Ph.D. will form smaller reading groups and assign different chapters to each group to ensure the readings are manageable. All the books have been reserved (or requested to be reserved) as an e-copy to be available online at the Concordia Library. In some cases, the books are only available in hard copy and must be obtained from the Concordia Library in person. In other cases, the Concordia Library is still processing the e-version, which should be available to students shortly.

Students will read excerpts from the following books:

Course Content

Global capitalism promotes practices that are socially and environmentally harmful. To increase profits, companies externalize social and planetary costs. Classical, neo-classical and neo-liberal economists have perpetuated the idea that value is achieved through resource extraction and that human activity is separate from nature – the metabolic rift. Furthermore, traditional economists continue to claim that economic success occurs when production increases, even though perpetually increasing production in a world with planetary limitations is destructive to living organisms.

In this course, students will read and discuss a variety of economic perspectives to understand the causes and consequences of current ecological and social crises. Students will learn about various political and economic philosophies to better understand how to solve these issues. For example, students will learn about other ways to get goods and services over and above market transactions, like, reciprocity and redistribution. They will also learn about political, economic, and social spheres to understand the complex intersections of human activity, economies and political power. Students will take macro and micro approaches to understand global and local economies. They will also critically evaluate the political/economic roles of firms and institutions as well as economic practices, like work, leisure, consumption, energy use, sustainable development, resource use, trade, and waste management. Finally, students will critically reflect on their involvement in these economic practices and learn how to solve (or improve) current ecological problems collectively.

In the first part of the course, students will critically examine the field of economics. They will begin by learning basic economic theories and concepts. For example, they will learn to define an economy, understand economic systems, and use rudimentary economic terminology. They will learn how to compare/contrast traditional economics with current social and ecological economic perspectives. Students will learn about the history of traditional economics and the development of social and ecological economics through various frameworks and contemporary theories. They will address questions like, what is the difference between ecological and traditional economics? What is neo-liberalism, and how did it develop? What is Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and why has it become paramount in defining economic success for traditional economists? In the second part of the course, students will learn about ecological boundaries, crises and measurement indicators. They will also examine the role of social inequality in addressing bio-physical issues. They will assess questions like, what global problems are we currently facing? What are the planetary boundaries? How can we measure these boundaries and know whether we are close to a tipping point? Who are the main culprits that are causing ecological problems? In the third part of the course, students will learn about ways to build and strengthen ethical economic practices. They will focus on three main social-ecological alternatives, degrowth, diverse economies and doughnut economics. Students will ask questions like; how can we re-embed economic systems into social and biological spheres? How can we create ethical economic practices? How can we prioritize values that are positive and not destructive? How can we stop focusing on increasing production to measure economic success? How can we grow an economy within ecological limits?

Students will critically reflect on how they participate in local and global economies throughout the course. They will also be encouraged to perform an action-research project to make ethical interventions to create better economic practices that include social justice, strong sustainability and decolonial perspectives.

Course Schedule, Readings and Seminar Questions
Week	Date	Description	Assignments and/or Readings Due
1	January 9	Introduction to Course	No Readings
2	January 16	Introduction to Economics	Stanford, J. (2015) Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism, Pluto Press. (I requested an e-version of the reading but was only granted a hard copy for the library) Part 1: The Preliminaries: (pp. 1 – 61) Introduction (pp. 1 – 14) Chapter 1: The Economy and Economics (pp. 15 – 30) Chapter 2: Capitalism (pp. 31 – 40) Chapter 3: Economic History (pp. 41 – 51) Chapter 4: The Politics of Economics (pp. 52 – 62) (or) Chang, H. (2014) Economics: The User’s Guide (I requested an e-version of this book to be available at the Concordia Library. Hopefully, it will be made available soon). Part 1: Getting Used to It (pp. 15 – 147) Chapter 1: Life, the Universe and Everything: What is Economics? (p. 15 – 22) Chapter 2: From Pin to PIN; Capitalism 1776 and 2014 (pp. 25 – 34). Chapter 3: One Fucking Thing After Another: What Use is History? (pp. 37 – 78) Chapter 4: Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom: How to “Do” Economics (pp. 81 – 122) Chapter 5: Dramatis Personae: Who are the Economic Actors? (pp. 124 – 144)
3	January 23	Societies and Economic Systems	Polanyi, K. (1944 & 2001) The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Beacon Press (2001 version). (Language bias declaration: this text contains male language biases whereby; people are referred to as Man). (I requested an e-version of the reading but was only granted a hard copy for the library) Chapter 4: Societies and Economic Systems (pp. 45 – 58) Chapter 5: Evolution of the Market Pattern (pp. 59 – 70) Chapter 6: The Self-Regulating Market and the Fictitious Commodities: Land, Labour and Money (pp. 71 – 80)
4	January 30	The Economy and the Anthropocene	Angus, I. (2016) Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System Part 1 – A No-Analog State (pp. 38 -106) Chapter 1 – A Second Copernican Revolution (pp. 27 – 37) Chapter 2 – The Great Acceleration (pp. 38 – 47) Chapter 3 – When did the Anthropocene Begin? (pp. 48 – 58) Chapter 4 – Tipping Points, Climate Chaos and Planetary Boundaries (pp. 59 – 77) Chapter 5 – First Near-Catastrophe (pp. 78 – 88) Chapter 6 – A New (and Deadly) Climate Regime (pp. 89 – 106) (or) Brown, P., & Timmerman, P. (2015) Ecological Economics for the Anthropocene: An Emerging Paradigm, Columbia University Press. Chapter 4: Measurement of Essential Indicators in Ecological Economics (pp. 125 – 147) Chapter 5 – Boundaries and Indicators: Capturing and Measuring Progress Towards an Economy of Right Relationship Constrained by Global Ecological Limits (pp. 148 – 189) Seminar Questions: 1 – What are the planetary boundaries and tipping points? What do scientists suggest caused current ecological crises, and how can these crises be resolved? 2 – What is the current situation regarding the Earth’s planetary limitations and tipping point? Have we improved or exacerbated ecological crises? Why?
5	February 6	The Political Economy of Inequality	Osberg, L. (2018) The Age of Increasing Inequality – The Astonishing Rise of Canada’s 1%, James Lorimer and Company. (I requested an e-version of this book to be available at the Concordia Library. Hopefully, it will be made available soon). Introduction (pp. 7 – 22) Chapter 1: Canadian Income Inequality: The Big Picture (pp. 23 – 40) Chapter 2: What’s Been Happening to Canada’s Middle Class (pp. 41 – 64) Chapter 3: Inequality at the Top (pp. 65 – 90) Chapter 4: Inequality from the Bottom Up (pp. 99 – 111) Chapter 5: The Moving Picture of Incomes (pp. 112 – 128) Chapter 6: Inequality of Wealth (pp. 129 – 148) Seminar Questions: 1 – What is the current situation regarding inequality in Canada and globally? What are the causes and consequences of national and international inequality? 2 – How does national and international inequality research help understand ecological and social crises? What proposals/policies have been made and/or implemented to address inequality? How effective or ineffective (realistic or unrealistic) were (are) these policies (proposals) – why?
6	February 13	Critique of Neo-Liberalism and Solutions	Olin Wright. E. (2021) How to Be An Anti-Capitalist in the 21^stCentury, Verso. (I requested an e-version of this book to be available at the Concordia Library. Hopefully, it will be made available soon). Preface (pp. xi – xiv) Chapter 1: Why be Anti-Capitalist? (pp. 1 – 22) Chapter 2: Diagnosis and Critique of Capitalism (23 – 36) Chapter 3: Varieties of Anti-Capitalism (pp. 37 – 64) Chapter 4: The Destination Beyond Capitalism: Socialism as Economic Democracy (pp. 65 – 94) Chapter 5: Anti-Capitalism and the State (95 – 118) Chapter 6: Agents of Transformation (pp. 119 – 132) Seminar Questions: 1 – What are the main critiques of Neo-liberalism and global capitalism? 2 – What solutions are proposed to address these issues?
7	February 20	Doughnut Economics	Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21^stCentury Economist Introduction: Who Wants to be an Economist? (pp. 1 – 26) Chapter 1: Change the Goal – From GDP to the Doughnut (pp. 27 – 54) Chapter 2: See the Big Picture – From Self-contained to embedded Economy (pp. 53 – 80) Chapter 3: Nurture Human Nature – From Rational Economic Man to Social Adaptable Humans (pp. 81 – 110) Seminar Questions: 1 – What is the doughnut model? How can ecological boundaries be kept within limits with the doughnut model of economics? How does the doughnut model relate to strong and weak sustainability? How does the model relate to value theory? 2 – What are the seven ways to think like a 21^st century economist? Compare/contrast the seven ways of thinking like a 21^st century economist with other theories of ecological economics. PROPOSAL DUE
	February 27	Reading Week – no classes
8	March 6	Doughnut Economics	Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21^stCentury Economist Chapter 4: Get Savvy with Systems – From Mechanical Equilibrium to Dynamic Complexity (pp. 111 – 138) Chapter 5: Design to Distribute – From ‘Growth Even it Up Again’ to Distribute by Design (pp. 139 – 174) Chapter 6: Create to Regenerate – From ‘Growth Will Clean it Up Again’ to Regenerative by Design (pp. 175 – 206) Seminar Questions 1 and 2 – Please provide tangible examples of ways we can ‘act like 21^st century economists’ based on Kate Raworth’s proposals.
9	March 13	Degrowth	The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism (I requested an e-version of the reading but was only granted a hard copy for the library) Chapter 1: Introduction (pp. 1 – 35) Chapter 2: Economic Growth (pp. 36 – 74) Chapter 3: Critiques of Growth (pp. 75 – 177) Seminar Questions: 1 – What is economic growth, and why has it received so much attention from traditional economists? 2 – What is degrowth? What is important about degrowth economics? What are the critiques of growth?
10	March 20	Degrowth	The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism Chapter 4: Degrowth Visions (pp. 178 – 211). Chapter 5: Pathways to Degrowth (pp. 112 – 250) Chapter 6: Making Degrowth Real (pp. 251 – 284). Chapter 7: The Future of Degrowth (pp. 285 – 298) Seminar Questions: 1 – Compare/contrast the theories of degrowth from the book with other contemporary academic articles. 2 – What are some critiques of degrowth economic models? Do these critiques hold merit?
11	Mar 27	Diverse Economies	Roelvink, G., Martin, K. S., Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2015) Making Other Worlds Possible: Performing Diverse Economies, Minnesota Press. Introduction: An Economic Politics of Our Time (pp. 1 – 25) Gibson-Graham, J. K., Dombroski, K. (2020) Handbook of Diverse Economies, Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. Introduction to The Handbook of Diverse Economies: Inventory as Ethical Intervention (pp. 1 – 24) Seminar Questions: 1 – What does it mean for an economy to be performative? How can we create ethical economies? 2 – What is a diverse economy? How can we understand diverse economies through an analytical framework?
12	April 3	Diverse Economies	Roelvink, G., Martin, K. S., Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2015) Making Other Worlds Possible: Performing Diverse Economies, Minnesota Press. Chapter 6: Nature’s Diverse Economies – Reading Political Ecology for Economic Difference (pp. 153 – 172) Chapter 7: Situating Wild Product Gathering in a Diverse Economy – Negotiating Ethical Interactions with Natural Resources (pp. 173 – 193) Chapter 9: Performing Posthumanist Economies in the Anthropocene (pp. 225 – 243) Seminar Questions: 1 – Please provide real-world examples of ethical economic practices within the diverse economy framework. These examples should be derived from academic literature. 2 – How can diverse economy frameworks be used to help solve ecological and social problems? FINAL PROJECT DUE
	April 7	Easter Holidays, University Closed
13	April 17	Course Wrap-Up	No Readings

Evaluation

Participation: The participation grade is based on attendance, involvement in discussions, participation in classroom activities and supplemental tasks. Students must not only attend the course, but they must demonstrate that they have completed the course readings.

Student-Led Seminar: Beginning on January 30th, students will lead seminars (two each) by reading the required material, preparing a presentation based on the weekly seminar questions, and facilitating a discussion. Two students will present per class for 45-minutes each. Students are permitted to deviate from the discussion questions if they get approval from Erik Chevrier, Ph.D., in advance. Students will be evaluated on their ability to identify the central claim(s) or thesis(es) of the texts and articulate it (them) in their own words, synthesize the readings in a clear, informative manner, answer one of the weekly seminar questions, lead a discussion about the readings and provide examples and/or case studies that support or contradict the arguments put forth in the chapter(s) they are presenting. Students must also submit a paper copy of their presentation and/or PowerPoint slides.

Action Research Project Proposal: Students will write a proposal for the action research project they want to partake in. Students must submit the proposal as a group. Students must (1) identify a group to participate with, a project to create, a conference to attend or draft a proposal for a literature review, (2) describe the project/conference/paper, (3) outline a specific timeline for the project, (4) summarize the roles of each group member, (5) link the topic to class readings and other social and/or ecological economic issues. Conference reports and literature reviews require annotated bibliographies.

Action-Research Project: This assignment aims to give students hands-on experience learning about environmental and social economics by participating with community members trying to create ethical economies and/or fight for social justice. Students will perform an action-based research project by creating a project, participating in an already existing initiative, attending a conference and/or writing an in-depth research-report about a topic in social and/or ecological economics. Students will participate and submit the report as a group. Students may request to be evaluated separately but must do so in the proposal.

Students must form a group; however, they may work with a group that already exists and/or create something with like-minded people outside the classroom. Students will form clusters and contribute to the project based on their expertise. For example, someone with great research skills could get involved with the research portion of the project, someone with media skills can build media infrastructure, and someone with great interpersonal communication skills can be a mobilizer, among other tasks. Students will be evaluated based on the depth of their involvement with the project, their deliverables, clearly reporting their contribution to the project, an oral presentation summarizing their role in the project, and linking the project to the course material.

Name of Assignment	Due Date	% of final grade
Participation	Ongoing	10
Seminar 1	TBD	20
Seminar 2	TBD	20
Project Proposal	February 20^th	20
Final Project	April 17^th	30

Letter/Grade Equivalency

Grade	Corresponding percentages (GPE)
A+	90-100
A	85-89
A-	80-84
B+	77-79
B	73-76
B-	70-72
C	60-69
F	0-59
Pass/ Fail
F/ABS	Fail/Absent
IP	In Progress

Extraordinary Circumstances

In the event of extraordinary circumstances and pursuant to the Academic Regulations, the University may modify the delivery, content, structure, forum, location and/or evaluation scheme. In the event of such extraordinary circumstances, students will be informed of the changes.

Class Cancellation

Classes are officially considered cancelled if an instructor is 15 minutes late for a 50-minute class, 20 minutes late for a 75-minute class, or 30 minutes late for longer classes.

Intellectual Property

Content belonging to instructors shared in online courses, including, but not limited to, online lectures, course notes, and video recordings of classes remain the intellectual property of the faculty member. It may not be distributed, published or broadcast, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the faculty member. Students are also forbidden to use their own means of recording any elements of an online class or lecture without express permission of the instructor. Any unauthorized sharing of course content may constitute a breach of the Academic Code of Conduct and/or the Code of Rights and Responsibilities. As specified in the Policy on Intellectual Property, the University does not claim any ownership of or interest in any student IP. All university members retain copyright over their work.

Behaviour

All individuals participating in courses are expected to be professional and constructive throughout the course, including in their communications.

Concordia students are subject to the Code of Rights and Responsibilities which applies both when students are physically and virtually engaged in any University activity, including classes, seminars, meetings, etc. Students engaged in University activities must respect this Code when engaging with any members of the Concordia community, including faculty, staff, and students, whether such interactions are verbal or in writing, face to face or online/virtual. Failing to comply with the Code may result in charges and sanctions, as outlined in the Code.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity means that every student must be honest and accurate in their work. The Academic Code of Conduct includes rules and regulations students must follow. Unacceptable practices include the following

Copy from ANYWHERE without saying from where it came.
Omit quotation marks for direct quotations.
Let another student copy your work and then submit it as his/her own.
Hand in the same assignment in more than one class without permission.
Have unauthorized material in an exam, such as cheat sheets, or crib notes. YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE CAUGHT USING THEM – JUST HAVING THEM WILL GET YOU INTO TROUBLE!
Copy from someone else’s exam.
Communicate with another student during an exam by talking or using some form of signals.
Add or remove pages from an examination booklet or take the booklet out of an exam room.
Get hold of or steal an exam or assignment answers or questions.
Write a test or exam for someone else or have someone write it for you.
Hand in false documents such as medical notes, transcript or record.
Falsify data or research results.

PLAGIARISM: The most common offense under the Academic Code of Conduct (see link below) is plagiarism, which the Code defines as “the presentation of the work of another person as one’s own or without proper acknowledgement.”

This could be material copied word for word from books, journals, internet sites, professor’s course notes, etc. It could be material that is paraphrased but closely resembles the original source. It could be the work of a fellow student, such as an answer on a quiz, data for a lab report, or a paper or assignment completed by another student. It could be a paper purchased through one of the many available sources. Plagiarism does not refer to words alone. It can also refer to copying images, graphs, tables, and ideas. Plagiarism is not limited to written work. It also applies to oral presentations, computer assignments and artistic works. Finally, if you translate the work of another person into French or English and do not cite the source, this is also plagiarism. In simple words: DO NOT COPY, PARAPHRASE OR TRANSLATE ANYTHING FROM ANYWHERE WITHOUT SAYING FROM WHERE YOU OBTAINED IT!

Take care to inform yourself of the rules, regulations and expectations for academic integrity.

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