[Fis] Focussing our discussion

Dear Jerry,
Dear All,

Answering to your last posting, I formulated my questions in the
introductory text, particularly questions 1-7, because I would like to find
some light concerning measurable properties (physical ones, informational
ones...) and/or methodologies, in relation with the evaluation of natural
resources and the interaction of our society with the environment (how to
measure the environmental impact provoked by technological and economic
activities?). That understanding could be relevant for sustainable
development.

Ecological economics basically deals with the distribution and management
of limited natural resources in order to reach a real sustainable
development, in which human beings and their social, technological and
economical development would be fully integrated with nature creating a
real constructive symbiosis. In my opinion, at the present FIS discussion
entitled "Economical Ecologics and Information", we are looking for the
"Scientific Fundamentals of Sustainability", which is really a huge and
major task with quite many different branches and addresses of discussion.

 From the different postings received during this week I consider that
there are at least three different branches of discussion already open. I
suggest that we deal with the three of them in depth (and perhaps separately):

1) Evaluation of natural resources (Pavel, in his very interesting
comments, has already advanced some thoughts about that).

2) Evaluation or measurement of "ecosystems health" or in other words,
measurement of the environmental impact provoked by the activities of human
beings. This is related with the previous issue, and both Jerry's opening
text and Pavel's posting have inspiring directions about the problem of
carrying capacity of Earth (e.g. Ascendancy). In my viewpoint the carrying
capacity of ecosystems does not only relate with the depletion of natural
resources but also with the quality or health of ecosystems, 'polution' for
instance.

3) Formal characterization of markets. This a very wide and deep topic
suggested by Pedro, which is also present in several postings (Karl, Pavel,
Loet). It is likely to be one of the key points of the present FIS
discussion: the really dense relationship between natural
resources/ecosystems, value, price and information.

I hope this modest synthesis/suggestion could help us to focus our further
discussion efforts, and avoid the peril of becoming lost in this vast and
ambitious session. By the beginning of next week I will try to prepare some
further comments related with the first issue --Evaluation of Natural
Resources--which is the aspect closest to my own specialized thermoeconomic
field.

In the interim let me kindly invite to the experts on these three fields,
recently subscribed in the FIS list, to share their viewpoints with all of us.

Have a nice weekend,

Luis
Received on Fri Nov 7 10:40:19 2003