Building the New Economy

Building the New Economy
Author: Alex Pentland
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 475
Release: 2021-10-12
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 026254315X

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How to empower people and communities with user-centric data ownership, transparent and accountable algorithms, and secure digital transaction systems. Data is now central to the economy, government, and health systems—so why are data and the AI systems that interpret the data in the hands of so few people? Building the New Economy calls for us to reinvent the ways that data and artificial intelligence are used in civic and government systems. Arguing that we need to think about data as a new type of capital, the authors show that the use of data trusts and distributed ledgers can empower people and communities with user-centric data ownership, transparent and accountable algorithms, machine learning fairness principles and methodologies, and secure digital transaction systems. It’s well known that social media generate disinformation and that mobile phone tracking apps threaten privacy. But these same technologies may also enable the creation of more agile systems in which power and decision-making are distributed among stakeholders rather than concentrated in a few hands. Offering both big ideas and detailed blueprints, the authors describe such key building blocks as data cooperatives, tokenized funding mechanisms, and tradecoin architecture. They also discuss technical issues, including how to build an ecosystem of trusted data, the implementation of digital currencies, and interoperability, and consider the evolution of computational law systems.

Citizen-led Innovation for a New Economy

Citizen-led Innovation for a New Economy
Author: John Gaventa
Publisher:
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2015
Genre: Canada
ISBN: 9781552667699

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"This collection of case studies provides a window onto citizen organizing for change that, when assembled together, give form and substance to the ideal of a new economy based on fairness and environmental sustainability. Occurring in response to the economically distorting effects of globalization, the environmental degradation brought about by industrial development, and a deep concern about climate change, these are stories of local citizens grappling with complex problems in their local communities, forging innovation, prising open cracks in the system and seizing opportunities to redirect economic life. They are challenging the short term focus in our political leadership by their commitment to take action now for future generations."--

The Ecology of the New Economy

The Ecology of the New Economy
Author: Jacob Park
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2017-09-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351282026

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A "revolution" is taking place in the development of global information and communications technologies. In slightly more than a decade, the World Wide Web has gone from the idea of an obscure English scientist to a consumer-oriented technology system with an expected one billion users by 2005. The technologies that enable this to happen are advancing rapidly, which is leading to both an unprecedented number of start-up companies and a host of innovative new alliances between companies. The growth has been so rapid and unexpected that little research and analysis has yet been done on what impact this transformation has had or will have on the ability of companies to meet the global sustainability challenge. As environmental strategy has traditionally been portrayed in terms of risk cutting and resource efficiency, there is a danger that critical business issues such as information technology, R&D and e-commerce development are examined in isolation from the wider sustainable business perspective. An important objective of the book is to explore, document and raise awareness of sustainability concerns arising from the emerging global information economy. The information economy is defined in the broadest sense possible, including software, hardware, telecommunication – traditional and wireless – and advanced communication technologies. Some of the key issues and questions that are examined include:Case studies on how and to what degree sustainability concerns are being integrated into the business model of electronic, telecommunication and dot.com firms. The relationship between the diffusion of information and communication technologies and the energy and resource intensity of companies. The role of information and communication technologies in the shaping of policies for sustainability, its impacts on sustainable or unsustainable lifestyles and its implications for the interaction between companies and other actors. Corporations and the global digital divide. The Ecology of the New Economy will be of interest to academics, governments, businesses, and non-governmental groups who are trying to understand the linkages and relationship between the two of our greatest global challenges: the information revolution and environmental sustainability.

The Ecology of Commerce

The Ecology of Commerce
Author: Paul Hawken
Publisher:
Total Pages: 253
Release: 1995
Genre: Economic development
ISBN: 9781857992168

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Paul Hawken believes that the impending ecological catastrophe cannot be prevented by individuals - only big business is powerful and influential enough to reverse the present trend. In this book he sets out to show the need for a new relationship between governments and businesses, believing that their present collusion against the public is undemocratic.

Growing a New Economy

Growing a New Economy
Author: Roar Bjonnes
Publisher:
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2018-09-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781881717539

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An increasing number of experts agree: today's financial and environmental crisis is a sign that something is fundamentally wrong. The same experts, however, have yet to present viable solutions. Growing a New Economy presents integral solutions to our economic problems that will be vitally important in the future restoration of our economy.

Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy

Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy
Author: Strother E. Roberts
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 081225127X

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Focusing on the Connecticut River Valley—New England's longest river and largest watershed— Strother Roberts traces the local, regional, and transatlantic markets in colonial commodities that shaped an ecological transformation in one corner of the rapidly globalizing early modern world. Reaching deep into the interior, the Connecticut provided a watery commercial highway for the furs, grain, timber, livestock, and various other commodities that the region exported. Colonial Ecology, Atlantic Economy shows how the extraction of each commodity had an impact on the New England landscape, creating a new colonial ecology inextricably tied to the broader transatlantic economy beyond its shores. This history refutes two common misconceptions: first, that globalization is a relatively new phenomenon and its power to reshape economies and natural environments has only fully been realized in the modern era and, second, that the Puritan founders of New England were self-sufficient ascetics who sequestered themselves from the corrupting influence of the wider world. Roberts argues, instead, that colonial New England was an integral part of Britain's expanding imperialist commercial economy. Imperial planners envisioned New England as a region able to provide resources to other, more profitable parts of the empire, such as the sugar islands of the Caribbean. Settlers embraced trade as a means to afford the tools they needed to conquer the landscape and to acquire the same luxury commodities popular among the consumer class of Europe. New England's native nations, meanwhile, utilized their access to European trade goods and weapons to secure power and prestige in a region shaken by invading newcomers and the diseases that followed in their wake. These networks of extraction and exchange fundamentally transformed the natural environment of the region, creating a landscape that, by the turn of the nineteenth century, would have been unrecognizable to those living there two centuries earlier.

Sustainability and the New Economics

Sustainability and the New Economics
Author: Stephen J. Williams
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2021-12-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030787958

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This multidisciplinary book provides new insights and hope for sustainable prosperity given recent developments in economics – but only if swift and strong actions consistent with Earth’s biophysical limits and principles of justice are universally taken. It is one thing to put limits on resource throughput and waste generation to conform with the ecosphere’s biocapacity. It is another thing to efficiently allocate a sustainable rate of resource throughput and ensure it is equitably distributed in the form of final goods and services. While the separate but interdependent decisions regarding throughput, distribution, and allocation are the essence of ecological economics, dealing with them in a world that needs to cure its growth addiction requires a realistic understanding of macroeconomics and the fiscal capacity of currency-issuing central governments. Sustainable prosperity demands that we harness this understanding to carefully regulate the rate of resource throughput and manipulate macroeconomic outcomes to facilitate human flourishing. The book begins by outlining humanity’s current predicament of gross ecological overshoot and laments the half-century of missed opportunities since The Limits to Growth (1972). What was once economic growth has become, in many high-income countries, uneconomic growth (additional costs exceeding additional benefits), which is no longer advancing wellbeing. Meanwhile, low-income nations need a dose of efficient and equitable growth to escape poverty while protecting their environments and the global commons. The book argues for a synthesis of our increasing knowledge of the ecosphere’s limited carrying capacity and the power of governments to harness, transform, and distribute resources for the common good. Central to this synthesis must be a correct understanding of the difference between financial constraints and real resource constraints. While the latter apply to everyone, the former do not apply to currency-issuing central governments, which have much more capacity for corrective action than mainstream thinking perceives. The book joins the growing chorus of authoritative voices calling for a complete overhaul of the dominant economic system. We conclude with policy recommendations based on a new economics that, if implemented, would come close to guaranteeing a sustainable and prosperous future. Upon reading this book, at least one thing should be crystal clear: business as usual is not a viable option.

The Ecology of Place

The Ecology of Place
Author: Timothy Beatley
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2013-04-22
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1610910656

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Current patterns of land use and development are at once socially, economically, and environmentally destructive. Sprawling low-density development literally devours natural landscapes while breeding a pervasive sense of social isolation and exacerbating a vast array of economic problems. As more and more counties begin to look more and more the same, hope for a different future may seem to be fading. But alternatives do exist. The Ecology of Place, Timothy Beatley and Kristy Manning describe a world in which land is consumed sparingly, cities and towns are vibrant and green, local economies thrive, and citizens work together to create places of eduring value. They present a holistic and compelling approach to repairing and enhancing communities, introducing a vision of "sustainable places" that extends beyond traditional architecture and urban design to consider not just the physical layout of a development but the broad set of ways in which communities are organized and operate. Chapters examine: the history and context of current land use problems, along with the concept of "sustainable places" the ecology of place and ecological policies and actions local and regional economic development links between land-use and community planning and civic involvement specific recommendations to help move toward sustainability The authors address a variety of policy and development issues that affect a community -- from its economic base to its transit options to the ways in which its streets and public spaces are managed -- and examine the wide range of programs, policies, and creative ideas that can be used to turn the vision of sustainable places into reality. The Ecology of Place is a timely resource for planners, economic development specialists, students, and citizen activists working toward establishing healthier and more sustainable patterns of growth and development.

Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics

Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics
Author: Herman E. Daly
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 218
Release: 1999
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

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Contains articles first published in journals in the 1980s and 1990s by a leading commentator on the environment, offering lively criticism of existing work on ecological economics and the economics of ecology. A theme of all the essays is that changes in perspective, attitudes, and policies are required to avoid the impoverishment that results when environmental and social costs of growth exceed benefits. Issues addressed include growth economics, misunderstandings of thermodynamics, economic development and population, globalization, money, and humans in the ecosystem. The author is a professor in the school of public affairs at the University of Maryland. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Nature's Economy

Nature's Economy
Author: Donald Worster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 528
Release: 1994-06-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521468343

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Nature's Economy is a wide-ranging investigation of ecology's past, first published in 1994.