The ecology of economic thought

I've been participating in a great online series on the historical intersections of economic and environmental thought, organized by Troy Vettese and Julia Nordblad. The organizers write:

One would think that environmental history and economic history would be peas in a pod. After all, central questions in the history of economic thought concern environmental issues such as the early-modern enclosures and the importance of water-power and coal to the industrial revolution. The meanings of ‘the environmental’ and ‘the economic’ have shifted over the centuries, especially as issues were traded between natural philosophy, political economy, and ecology. While much has been written on policy of various kinds, what this workshop is focused on are works that lie at the convergence of environmental, economic, and intellectual history. What  for example are the origins and contexts of Spaceship Earth, catastrophe bonds, geo-engineering, externalities, cap-and-trade, and sustainability? 

Many of the papers are on topics with significant legal aspects, such as the history of economic thought on emissions trading, Pigouvian taxes, and the like. Stephen Gross's paper for tomorrow is particularly laden with connections to the history of environmental law and regulation.

The schedule for the remaining meetings is below. Registration is for each session separately (links below), and the discussions assume pre-reading of the papers, as the authors do not present them but only respond to comments. Papers are available from Troy Vetesse.

February 10 ​Theory ii

‘Energy and Environmental Economics After the Oil Shock: The Rise of Ecological Modernization’ Stephen Gross (NYU) Discussants: Adam Tooze (Columbia) and Nathalie Berta (Reims)

‘Resilience in Context’ Irene Sotiropoulou (Hull)
Discussants: Venus Bivar and Troy Vettese (Harvard University)

Please register here: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zRcfRXTzTyKfXETai6TCQQ

February 17 ​Policy

‘Struggling to Remake the Market: The Feed-in-Tariff and the Neo-Liberal Roots of German Climate Politics’ Stephen Milder (Groningen)
Discussants: Adam Tooze (Columbia) and Viktor Pressfeldt (Lund)

'Market Governance, Obstruction, and Denial: Neoliberal Environmental Thought and Policy in Sweden, 1988–2015’ Kristoffer Ekberg (Chalmers) and Viktor Pressfeldt (Lund)
Discussants: Stephen Milder and Stephen Gross

‘'Challenging Economic Times: Temporality in Critiques of Economized Nature, 1985–1995’ Julia Nordblad (Uppsala)
Discussants David Schorr (Tel Aviv) and Antoine Missemer (CIRED Paris)

Please register here: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OxUmr3ziTN-h3G1CGTvWLg

February 24 ​Empire ii

‘From Svamiji’s Ashram to Whitehall: Instrumentalising the British Government during the 1973 Oil Crisis’ Thomas Turnbull (MPI Berlin)
Discussants: Nandita Badami (UCal, Irvine) and Fredrik Albritton Jonsson (Chicago)

‘Between the Hand-loom and the Samson Stripper: The Contradictory Worlds of E. F. Schumacher’ Robert Leonard (UQAM)
Discussants: Paul Erikson (Wesleyan) and Marco Paulo Vianna Franco (Konrad Lorenz Institute)

Please register here: https://harvard.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ix9YUod_TbiCUkhZPUAYXQ