Role of economics in analyzing the environment and sustainable development

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The environmental sciences have documented large and worrisome changes in earth systems, from climate change and loss of biodiversity, to changes in hydrological and nutrient cycles and depletion of natural resources (1⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓⇓–12). These global environmental changes have potentially large negative consequences for future human well-being, and raise questions about whether global civilization is on a sustainable path or is “consuming too much” by depleting vital natural capital (13). The increased scale of economic activity and the consequent increasing impacts on a finite Earth arises from both major demographic changes—including population growth, shifts in age structure, urbanization, and spatial redistributions through migration (14⇓⇓⇓–18)—and rising per capita income and shifts in consumption patterns, such as increases in meat consumption with rising income (19, 20). At the same time, many people are consuming too little. In 2015, ∼10% of the world’s population (736 million) lived in extreme poverty with incomes of less than $1.90 per day (21). In 2017, 821 million people were malnourished, an increase in the number reported malnourished compared with 2016 (22). There is an urgent need for further economic development to lift people out of poverty. In addition, rising inequality resulting in increasing polarization of society is itself a threat to achieving sustainable development. Eliminating poverty (goal 1) and hunger (goal 2), achieving gender equality (goal 6), and reducing inequality (goal 10) feature prominently in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (23). A recent special issue in PNAS on natural capital framed the challenge of sustainable development as one of developing “economic, social, and governance systems capable of ending poverty and achieving sustainable levels of population and consumption while securing the life-support systems underpinning current and future human well-being” (24 … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: polasky{at}umn.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1