EC 3003 Ecological Economics
Womersley
First Take-Home Examination
Due Friday October 7th, 5pm, by email
Instructions:
This is a take-home
exam. You may research the answers. Cite all sources other than lecture and the
Daly/Farley text. Answer all questions. Do not confer with other students. Do
not submit via Canvas.
Short answers (one or two paragraphs):
1.
Why and how can Dr. Mark Sagoff accuse
Ecological Economics of “senescence” and being academically fit for “assisted
living”? (In The Rise and Fall of
Ecological Economics,” Breakthrough Institute Journal, June 20th, 2012.
2.
Explain why Julian Simon thought the price mechanism
would take care of resource shortages. Will it?
3.
Detail the “means-ends” spectrum, discuss current
societal context and meaning, and explain why it is really not a spectrum.
4.
Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World, posited a future society in which “soma”, a drug
that produced happiness and even euphoria, was used to exclude negative
feelings such as sadness, grief, and so on. What is the lesson for mainstream
economics?
5.
Thomas Piketty and Robert Reich share social
theory (and a graph). Explain how and why.
Essay: Attempt one (only one) of the following topics in properly
researched, cited essay
Trace the history of Peak Oil theory and explain
its failure. What bias was inherent in ecological economics such that it failed
to identify current trends in oil supplies?
Relate “Jeffersonian democracy” to
ecological economics. What is the role of the “Common Ground Fair”?
Explain the failure of sustained yield
theory in the Gulf of Maine cod fishery.
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