Economics for the Anthropocene (E4A)
Economics for the Anthropocene, or E4A, is a diverse partnership of 25 academic, government, and NGO partners designed to improve how the social sciences and humanities connect to scientific realities about the human-Earth relationship. E4A‘s overarching goal is to articulate, teach and apply a new understanding of human-Earth relationships grounded in and informed by the insights of contemporary science.
The E4A partnership aims to create a vibrant international research network, partner with Master and PhD students to train future leaders for the Anthropocene, reconcile disciplines to apply ecological economics, and engage on-the-ground actors to help solve transnational problems such as challenges of water quality and use, energy development, and climate justice.
The E4A partnership will draw on the strengths of McGill University, the University of Vermont and York University in ecological economics, creating a concentration of research and teaching expertise until now unavailable in North America. The partnership will train up to 60 graduate students in three cohorts over six years. Each student’s training will establish enduring links with on-the-ground partners through joint research, internships, and knowledge mobilization projects. Cohorts will take core courses together through innovative web-enabled classrooms that already link our academic partners. Joint field courses will involve non-academic partners in providing hands-on experience in transdisciplinary problems and their interdependent ecological, social, and economic dimensions.
E4A will focus on three daunting regional challenges: water security, energy resources, and climate justice. The water cohort will investigate new ecological foundations of law and public discourse in addressing trans-boundary water pollution and watershed management. The energy cohort will consider current and future energy supply, accounting for ecological, social and equity implications of meeting energy needs. The climate justice cohort will address the reality that those least responsible for global climate change will bear the brunt of its impacts. All cohorts will help expand the theoretical and practical extension of ecological economics into other disciplines.
READ: E4A Newsletter – Winter-Spring 2015
READ: E4A Students’ Work
Program Director: Peter Brown
Associated Research Themes: Life Projects; Customary Tenure; Politics of Resource Extraction; Conservation and Protected Areas