The environment as a luxury good or “too poor to be green”?

Abstract

Abstract This paper discusses the views of different authors on the relations between economic growth and environmental scarcities. It lays out the common assumptions behind Inglehart's postmaterialist thesis in environmental sociology, Krutilla's criterion for the valuation of environmental amenities, Hirsch's notion of the positional economy, and Pearce's numerical results on weak sustainability. The paper shows how different views on the environmental consequences of economic growth imply at the same time different theories about environmental movements. In rich countries, there is an increasing demand for environmental amenities which cannot be substituted by products of the material economy, and there are also environmental movements against the “effluents of affluence”. In poor countries, there are environmental movements characterized as the “environmentalism of the poor”.