ECO-3215 : History of Environmental Economics

This course is an introduction to the issues of environmental economics and ecological economics, taking into account a critical reflection on the place of economic knowledge within the environmental humanities. The first part of the course aims to place environmental economics in a reflexive context, based on the historically situated conflicts surrounding both the categories of environment and economy. The second part of the course then presents the main issues in environmental economics, with the latter considered first as an externality, then as a collective good. This is followed by a discussion of the economic valuation of the environment and ecosystem services, the contribution of economics to addressing climate change, and the economics of natural resources. Each of these points is addressed using the literature of environmental economics as a starting point, and then questioned or put back into perspective using complements from ecological economics and other social sciences (mainly from environmental history and sociology).