The Framework of Ecological Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Bosselmann
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
System Science ◽  
The Past ◽  
Reductionist Approach

Environmental law has always been hampered by its reductionist approach to the natural environment or more precisely, to the human-nature relationship. In contrast, ecological law would encourage us to think about the law from an Earth-centered perspective. But even more than thinking about the legal issues, ecological law reflects and advocates a changed mindset. We need to develop a mindset that is conscious of what has worked in the past and what promises to work in the future. This could be addressed through development of eco-centric law, inclusion of eco-centric grundnorm, transforming law and governance, and institutionalizing trusteeship governance. At the end, it is proposed that ecological law would frame our thinking in a way that reflects not only the traditional values of connectedness with nature, but equally leading cutting-edge sciences of today such as ecology, earth system science and health sciences.

The Framework of Ecological Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Klaus Bosselmann
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Environmental Law ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
System Science ◽  
The Past ◽  
Reductionist Approach

Environmental law has always been hampered by its reductionist approach to the natural environment or more precisely, to the human-nature relationship. In contrast, ecological law would encourage us to think about the law from an Earth-centered perspective. But even more than thinking about the legal issues, ecological law reflects and advocates a changed mindset. We need to develop a mindset that is conscious of what has worked in the past and what promises to work in the future. This could be addressed through development of eco-centric law, inclusion of eco-centric grundnorm, transforming law and governance, and institutionalizing trusteeship governance. At the end, it is proposed that ecological law would frame our thinking in a way that reflects not only the traditional values of connectedness with nature, but equally leading cutting-edge sciences of today such as ecology, earth system science and health sciences.

Why Simulate?

1991 ◽  
Author(s):  
James C. G. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Trace Element Composition ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Earth System Science ◽  
System Science ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Future ◽  
Systems Simulation

Our world is a product of complex interactions among atmosphere, ocean, rocks, and life that Earth system science seeks to understand. Earth system science deals with such properties of the environment as composition and climate and populations and the ways in which they affect one another. It also concerns how these interactions caused environmental properties to change in the past and how they may change in the future. The Earth system can be studied quantitatively because its properties can be represented by numbers. At present, however, most of the numbers in Earth system science are observational rather than theoretical, and so our description of the Earth system's objective properties is much more complete than our quantitative understanding of how the system works. Quantitative theoretical understanding grows out of a simulation of the system or parts of the system and numerical experimentation with simulated systems. Simulation experiments can answer questions like What is the effect of this feature? or What would happen in that situation? Simulation also gives meaning to observations by showing how they may be related. As an illustration, consider that area of Earth system science known as global change. There is now an unambiguous observational record of global change in many important areas of the environment. For elements of climate and atmospheric composition this record is based on direct measurement over periods of a decade to a century. For other environmental variables, particularly those related to the composition of the ocean, the record of change consists of measurements of isotopic or trace-element composition of sediments deposited over millions of years. This evidence of global change is profoundly affecting our view of what the future holds in store for us and what options exist. It should also influence our understanding of how the interaction of biota and environment has changed the course of Earth history. But despite the importance of global change to our prospects for the future and our understanding of the past, the mechanisms of change are little understood. There are many speculative suggestions about the causes of change but few quantitative and convincing tests of these suggestions.

The Nature of Degrowth: Theorising the Core of Nature for the Degrowth Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pasi Heikkurinen
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Culturally Sensitive ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Radical Reduction ◽  
Nature Experience ◽  
Matter Energy

This article investigates human–nature relations in the light of the recent call for degrowth, a radical reduction of matter–energy throughput in over-producing and over-consuming cultures. It outlines a culturally sensitive response to a (conceived) paradox where humans embedded in nature experience alienation and estrangement from it. The article finds that if nature has a core, then the experienced distance makes sense. To describe the core of nature, three temporal lenses are employed: the core of nature as ‘the past’, ‘the future’, and ‘the present’. It is proposed that while the degrowth movement should be inclusive of temporal perspectives, the lens of the present should be emphasised to balance out the prevailing romanticism and futurism in the theory and practice of degrowth.

A Scientific Search for Altruism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Daniel Batson
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Empathic Concern ◽  
Altruistic Motivation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Past Half

This book provides an example of how the scientific method can be used to address a fundamental question about human nature. For centuries—indeed for millennia—the egoism–altruism debate has echoed through Western thought. Egoism says that the motivation for everything we do, including all of our seemingly selfless acts of care for others, is to gain one or another self-benefit. Altruism, while not denying the force of self-benefit, says that under certain circumstances we can care for others for their sakes, not our own. Over the past half-century, social psychologists have turned to laboratory experiments to provide a scientific resolution of this human nature debate. The experiments focused on the possibility that empathic concern—other-oriented emotion elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need—produces altruistic motivation to remove that need. With carefully constructed experimental designs, these psychologists have tested the nature of the motivation produced by empathic concern, determining whether it is egoistic or altruistic. This series of experiments has provided an answer to a fundamental question about what makes us tick. Framed as a detective story, the book traces this scientific search for altruism through the numerous twists and turns that led to the conclusion that empathy-induced altruism is indeed part of our nature. It then examines the implications of this conclusion—negative implications as well as positive—both for our understanding of who we are as humans and for how we might create a more humane society.

The Indian Yearbook of Comparative Law 2016

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Law ◽  
Comparative Law ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Corporate Law ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Reading Materials ◽  
The World ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Comparative Study ◽  
Day By Day

The contributions, by eminent scholars, included in The Indian Yearbook of Comparative Law 2016 discuss the discipline of comparative law in India and is of immense importance for legal scholarship around the globe. Unlike the West, that has covered almost all aspects of law from private to public law matters of national, transnational, and international relevance, not much work has been done in the discipline of Comparative law in India. In view of the countries and people of the world coming closer day by day, the need for the comparative study of law is becoming a sine qua non for participation in almost all transactions among people living across the globe. The attempt made with this volume will not only meet the much-awaited need of having reading materials on comparative law, but will also create a forum for legal scholars around the world to express their views on different aspects of law in comparative perspective. The issues covered her range from comparative legal methods to comparison in different aspects of law in different countries, as well as transnational and international bodies such as European Union and the various bodies of the United Nations. The issues covered include corporate law, constitutional law, human rights, environmental law, globalization, democracy, privatization, and several other contemporary legal issues.

The economics of escalation

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-140
Author(s):  
Fabio D’Orlando ◽  
Sharon Ricciotti
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Budget Constraint ◽  
Theoretical Treatment ◽  
Jel Codes ◽  
Innate Behavior ◽  
Hedonic Adaptation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Subjective Scale ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Positional Effects

Escalation is a key characteristic of many consumption behaviors that has not received theoretical attention. This paper aims to propose both a definition and a theoretical treatment of escalation in consumption. We define escalation as a subject’s attempt to obtain “more” or engage in consumption behaviors that are “more intense” on a measurable, quantitative or qualitative, objective or subjective, scale (more difficult ski slopes, stronger drugs, harder sex, better restaurants etc.), even if the subject preferred less intense consumption behaviors in the past. Further, this evolution in behavior also occurs if the budget constraint does not change. We will find endogenous and exogenous theoretical microfoundations for escalation in models of hedonic adaptation, desire for novelty, acquisition of consumption skills, rising aspirations, positional effects, and envy. However, we will also discuss the possibility that the tendency to escalate is a specific innate behavior inherent to human nature. Finally, we will propose a preliminary theoretical formalization of such behavior and indicate the possible implications of taking escalation into adequate consideration. JEL codes: B52, D11, D90, D91, I31

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