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The goal of sustainable economic growth is achievable only when economic growth and development occur without environmental degradation. The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis explains the inverted U-shaped association between economic activity and environmental degradation. The primary objective of this study is to empirically test the truth behind the EKC hypothesis. In addition to that, the study is intended to analyze the variation in the shape of the EKC; that is, cross-country variation, as well as variation over time. In order to achieve the stated objectives, the study analyzed a long list of countries (75 countries) for a fairly long period of time (1960–2016, i.e., 57 years). The empirical literature in this area estimated the EKC using some form of a polynomial regression equation. This study also used a similar kind of modeling structure to understand cross-country as well as dynamic variation in the shape of the EKC. In this study, firstly the selected countries are grouped on the basis of the shape of the EKC. Secondly, the dynamic behavior of each parameter in the polynomial equation is analyzed to understand the degree of association between economic activity and environmental degradation. This study suggests a decline in degree of association between the two over time.

The objective of this paper is to give an overview of various reliability concepts that have been developed in the last decades. The paper first summarises various indicators that have been developed in order to measure the reliability of a network and then looks at techniques to calculate these indicators. The usefulness and limitations of the different indicators is discussed. The paper suggests that there is no single perfect indicator but that the choice of indicator and technique depends on several factors, including the viewpoint of the analyst and the type and range of interventions being considered. In order to assess the impact of incidents the authors propose to distinguish between three types of intervention, namely “benevolent”, “neutral” or random, and “malevolent”. Also discussed is why the provision of up-to-date information to the traveller has a central role to play when trying to minimise the impact of an incident.

This chapter presents research and analysis on the Institute for Economics and Peace’s (IEP’s) index in the Ecological Threat Report (ETR). In the analysis, 178 countries are examined at the sub-national level, accounting for 99.9% of the global population. The estimate consists of five indicators that aggregate to yield an index of ecological threats. These five indicators are water risk, the prevalence of stunting, the impact of natural disasters, projected population growth and projected temperature rise. The ETR is a tool that can be used to identify the countries that are at the highest risk of ecological threats. The index identifies that 30 countries facing the highest level of ecological threats as well as low levels of resilience are home to 1.26 billion people. At the end of 2020, in these 30 countries, 68% of the total people were forcibly displaced beyond their borders. As these 30 countries suffer collectively from the highest ecological threats and without the reversal of ecological degradation, displacement is very likely to continue. Without urgent development, ecological threats will continue to create humanitarian emergencies and will likely increase without a sustained effort to reverse the current trend.

This paper explores through Schumacher's perspective on ‘the proper use of land’: the reasons for, and the means and consequences of, monitoring soil condition in managing agricultural landscapes sustainably. This particular perspective illustrates its argument with soil monitoring initiatives operating at various scales within the global agricultural context. Schumacher's land management goals are health, beauty and permanence, yet productivity is the goal most land managers focus on. The chosen indicators for soil monitoring need to reflect these goals. Hence, the indicators of choice for monitoring soil condition are attributes that can be: easily measured, improve soil productivity or protect the soil. Often attributes that have intrinsic ‘beauty’ (value), maintain ‘health’ (function) in ecosystems and are difficult to measure are ignored as soil condition indicators. The usefulness of information gained through monitoring soil condition is to make decisions that will be relevant for varied audiences and at different points in the decision-making process.

Accounting’s definition of accountability should include attributes of socioenvironmental degradation manufactured by unsustainable technologies. Beck argues that emergent accounts should reflect the following primary characteristics of technological degradation: complexity, uncertainty, and diffused responsibility. Financial stewardship accounts and probabilistic assessments of risk, which are traditionally employed to allay the public’s fear of uncontrollable technological hazards, cannot reflect these characteristics because they are constructed to perpetuate the status quo by fabricating certainty and security. The process through which safety thresholds are constructed and contested represents the ultimate form of socialized accountability because these thresholds shape how much risk people consent to be exposed to. Beck’s socialized total accountability is suggested as a way forward: It has two dimensions, extended spatiotemporal responsibility and the psychology of decision-making. These dimensions are teased out from the following constructs of Beck’s Risk Society thesis: manufactured risks and hazards, organized irresponsibility, politics of risk, radical individualization and social learning. These dimensions are then used to critically evaluate the capacity of full cost accounting (FCA), and two emergent socialized risk accounts, to integrate the multiple attributes of sustainability. This critique should inform the journey of constructing more representative accounts of technological degradation.

This chapter explores the domestication of Marx's critique of political economy within Marxist-oriented environmental sociology, and treadmill of production (ToP) theory, in particular. The aim is to explicate the theoretical resources for a rigorous critique of capital-induced planetary degradation. Shortcomings of ToP theory pertaining to the conceptualization of capital and value are identified. The reasons for these shortcomings, including how they might be addressed, are elaborated by reconsidering key aspects of Marx's critical theory of modern capitalist society. The chapter contributes to current discussions in both critical theory and environmental sociology by demonstrating the continued relevance of Marx's critical theory for understanding the political-economic, social, and ideational dimensions of planetary degradation. In contrast to ToP theory, which critically examines the production of wealth by counterposing finitude and limits against the expansionary tendencies of economic growth, the critical theory approach advanced in this chapter conceptualizes the acceleration of environmental degradation following World War II in terms of a ToP of value, whereby the necessity of the value form is continuously established in the present. The chapter discusses how Marxian critical theory facilitates a critical examination of the widespread growth of environmentalism as concomitant with the spread of neoliberal capitalism.

This chapter develops and examines a model of the relationship between consumption and environmental degradation, using per capita gross domestic product (GDP) as the proxy for consumer behavior and per capita carbon dioxide emissions as the indicator of pollution. The time paths of emissions and consumption are modeled within a dynamic framework representative of ever-changing global economic and social conditions, and the result is expressed as an optimization problem from which Hamiltonian conditions are derived. Optimal control theory can be used to solve problems in dynamic economic analysis, and the Hamiltonian approach is one way of solving this class of problems. These conditions are analyzed through the use of a phase diagram, and the empirical section of the chapter reveals the relationship between CO2 emissions and GDP values for the aggregate of 148 nation states studied by the United Nations, as well as for developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries as classified by the United Nations. The results of our analysis are not encouraging unless significant changes are made to the policies of leading nations, and the chapter closes with a discussion of alternative policy paths that may ease the identified trends in environmental degradation.

Recreancy is a concept that received William R. Freudenburg’s studied attention. Freudenburg moved beyond its conventional meaning – shirking duty – to a larger realm of irresponsibility by public actors who breach a societal trust they assume. This research focuses on the issue of “Peak Farmland,” a rendering of global carrying capacity that, we suggest, qualifies for what Freudenburg called “privileged discourse” and possibly recreancy. Scholars identified with dematerialized progress argue that finite farmland in the face of increasing population will improve human welfare and spare land for nature. This iconoclasm presents an arena for testing academic probity with respect to global food security. After an overview of past carrying capacity debates, we summarize the “Peak Farmland” position of the dematerialization school and suggest an important blind spot: the dematerialization of the global land base itself. Gathering the results of multiple studies on land loss, we offer evidence that the world’s warehouse of productive land is not just peaking but eroding on a grand scale. Ignoring this form of dematerialization while proclaiming nearly unlimited carrying capacity for Earth’s denizens strains the meaning of responsible scholarship.