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Disagreement on Sustainability Policy within the Social Sciences?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

Jeroen C.J.M. Van Den Bergh*
Affiliation:
Institute for Environmental Science and Technology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici Cn - Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain; and ICREA, Barcelona, and Faculty of Economics and Business Administration & Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

One can find many proposals for policy responses to global environmental problems. Different disciplines – notably economics, geography, innovation studies, policy and political sciences, psychology and sociology – offer partly inconsistent advice. This undermines the social-political acceptance of policies as voters and politicians are likely to be left confused. To decide about an adequate sustainability policy mix we need to concur on the core problems such a mix has to tackle. I address four of these hereafter. Each one involves important issues of disagreement as well as unresolved questions.

Type
Erasmus Lecture 2014
Copyright
© Academia Europaea 2016 

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