Teaching and Learning Guide for: Environmental Economic Geography

Introductory Paragraph Economy and environment have often been debated, not least by politicians seeking election, as two separate, conflicting realms in zero sum relationships to one another; voters must choose between economy or environment. Likewise, modern (post‐1960) economic geography largely sub‐disciplined itself around an interest in employment (e.g. industrial geography) or in nature (e.g. environmental geography). Fortunately, the nature of the debate is changing rapidly and political, business and environmental leaders have recognized that economic development and environmental sustainability, the two central challenges facing the world in the twenty‐first century, depend on each other as potentially mutually compatible imperatives. Recognition that economic evolution is driven by innovations of all kinds that restructure relations between economy and environment supports this view. If these restructurings have been overwhelmingly negative for the environment in the past, a re‐calibration of institutional and technological innovation towards a Green Paradigm that seeks to realize positive sum relationships between economy and environment is feasible. Moreover, a Green Paradigm needs to be both global in scope and sensitive to geographically uniqueness. Economy–environment relationships are distinctive in particular places and connected across space; climate warming, for example, is a global phenomenon in which processes and outcomes are locally varied. The vital role for environmental economic geography is to assess how place and space influence economy–environment relations that are site‐specific, globally interdependent and multi‐scalar, and to prescribe (local–global) relations that will realize economic and environmental values. Normatively, with respect to the achievement of economic and environmental values: How should innovation systems be organized globally and locally? What is the proper distribution of economic activities? How should cities and resource peripheries be remapped? How should value chains that directly and indirectly link multi‐faceted (resource, manufacturing and service activities) activities in the supply of goods and services for consumers best be organized locally and globally? These are some of the fascinating questions facing environmental economic geography. Annotated Suggestions for Readings 1. Freeman C. 1992 ‘A green techno‐economic paradigm for the world economy’ in The Economics of Hope Freeman, C. Pinter, London, pp. 190–211. Freeman demonstrates how environmental impacts are affected by the innovation choices made by society and that a Green Techno‐economic Paradigm (TEP) is a realistic hope. 2. Freeman C. and Louça F. 2001 ‘The emergence of a new techno‐economic paradigm: The age of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Freeman C. and Louça F. As Time Goes By , Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 301–335. Part Two (pp. 139–372) explains the major features of the five TEPs since the late eighteenth century, emphasizing the role of innovation in economic evolution. The cited chapter focuses on the present TEP. 3. Clapp, R. A. (1998). The resource cycle in forestry and fishing. The Canadian Geographer 42: 129–144. Reveals the powerful tendencies for even sustainable resources to boom and bust. 4. Hendricks, B. (2008). The Green Road to Economic Recovery http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/09/hendricks_testimony.html (accessed September 2008). Testimony before the US House Select Committee on Energy Interdependence and Global Economy to argue that investment in attempts to reduce climate warming can rejuvenate the economy. 5. Hayter, R., Barnes, T. and Bradshaw, M. J. (2003). Relocating resource peripheries to the core of economic geography's theorizing: rationale and agenda. Area 35: 15–23. A plea to examine resource peripheries as sites where environmental, cultural, industrial and political values are often in conflict. 6. Florida, R. (1996). Lean and green: the move to environmentally conscious manufacturing. California Management Review 39: 80–105. An assessment of how manufacturing firms in the US are responding to environmental imperatives. 7. Maack, M. H. and Skulason, J. B. (2005). Implementing the hydrogen economy. Journal of Cleaner Production 14: 52–64. A review of Iceland's experiment to become the world's first hydrogen economy. Focus Questions 1. How realistic is a green TEP? Or, what are the possibilities for positive sum games between economic development and environment around the globe, especially for poor countries. 2. In your home nation, region and community assess shifts towards positive sum relationships between economic development and environment. Are there contradictory trends? 3. How are environmental priorities creating jobs in your nation, region or community? What is the potential of ‘environmental industries’ in the ‘south’ (developing countries)? 4. What are innovation systems, what is their (evolving) geography and how are they addressing environmental priorities? 5. What is the case for dispersing innovation efforts and priorities in relation to the environment among regions and centres within countries and, globally, to developing countries? 6. Assess how environmental imperatives encourage localized clusters of economic activities within value chains. Can environmental imperatives support the globalization of value chains? 7. Assess the meaning of a ‘proper distribution of industry’ in economic, social and environmental terms. Answer in terms of a particular geographic scale of your choosing. 8. Remapping for a Green Paradigm implies reorganizing patterns of land use to ensure environmental as well as economic imperatives are met. What are the implications of a green TEP for the internal structure of cities? What are the implications for resource peripheries? 9. Assess Iceland's attempts to be the world's first hydrogen economy. As a tiny, geographically peripheral nation are there general lessons to be learned from the Iceland case in terms of policy approach and the geography of a Green TEP? 10. Environmental economic geography is a message of hope. Is there a place for hope in ‘hard‐headed’ theorizing and analysis? (Compare institutional with Marxist and neoclassical approaches.) Bulleted Outline (that demonstrates how the article/topic might connect to related material in lectures or discussions). Relevant to debates on environment and economy by emphasizing possibilities for positive sum games on the basis of a ‘reasoned history’ of economic evolution. Extends the thinking about the potential of institutional approaches to economic geography. Provides context for discussions of the ‘Green Corporation’ and ideas about social responsibility and business ethics. Provides context for discussions of role of state and consumers in influencing change. Relevant to discussions of how policy and regulations can stimulate long term change.

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