The History of the World in 100 Objects:
"A singular BBC series, "The History of the World in 100 Objects," has grown its way to iconic status in the UK this year. Millions of Brits have tuned in to see each successive object unveiled. The 100th object was revealed last week. It is a solar-powered lamp and charger. This is a very encouraging choice, for those with a mind to read potentially big things into seemingly small developments.

The BBC's justification for including this rather simple object, ahead of other candidates from the early twenty-first century such as the mobile phone, reads as follows: "It's an object that can bring electricity to those who have never had it before, and may point the way towards a more sustainable source of power for all of us in the future."

www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremy-leggett/post_1061_b_766277.html?view=print

In light of this eminent choice, it's not too far fetched to consider a philosophy behind this Appropriate Technology...

Buddhist Economics: "Right Livelihood":

...It is clear, therefore, that Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilisation not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character.
Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man’s work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products.
The Indian philosopher and economist J. C. Kumarappa sums the matter up as follows:

If the nature of the work is properly appreciated and applied, it will stand in the same relation to the higher faculties as food is to the physical body. It nourishes and enlivens the higher man and urges him to produce the best he is capable of. It directs his free will along the proper course and disciplines the animal in him into progressive channels. It furnishes an excellent background for man to display his scale of values and develop his personality.

Simplicity and Non-violence are obviously closely related. The optimal pattern of consumption, producing a high degree of human satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption, allows people to live without great pressure and strain and to fulfill the primary injunction of Buddhist teaching:

“Cease to do evil; try to do good.”

As physical resources are everywhere limited, people satisfying their needs by means of a modest use of resources are obviously less likely to be at each other’s throats than people depending upon a high rate of use. Equally, people who live in highly self-sufficient local communities are less likely to get involved in large-scale violence than people whose existence depends on world-wide systems of trade.

...From the point of view of Buddhist economics, therefore, production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life, while dependence on imports from afar and the consequent need to produce for export to unknown and distant peoples is highly uneconomic and justifiable only in exceptional cases and on a small scale.
Just as the modern economist would admit that a high rate of consumption of transport services between a man’s home and his place of work signifies a misfortune and not a high standard of life, so the Buddhist would hold that to satisfy human wants from faraway sources rather than from sources nearby signifies failure rather than success.

Another striking difference between modern economics and Buddhist economics arises over the use of natural resources. Bertrand de Jouvenel, the eminent French political philosopher, has characterised "Western man" in words which may be taken as a fair description of the modern economist:

He tends to count nothing as an expenditure, other than human effort; he does not seem to mind how much mineral matter he wastes and, far worse, how much living matter he destroys. He does not seem to realize at all that human life is a dependent part of an ecosystem of many different forms of life. As the world is ruled from towns where men are cut off from any form of life other than human, the feeling of belonging to an ecosystem is not revived. This results in a harsh and improvident treatment of things upon which we ultimately depend, such as water and trees.

www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html

I usually shy away from long posts here, but this one kept me going. Much food for thought here Stu. Thanks for sharing.

VALUE OF NATURE: ECONOMICS
(from Juliet Eilperin)

The world has vastly underestimated the economic value of nature in developing nations, according to a report the United Nations is releasing Wednesday.

Ecosystems such as fresh water, coral reefs and forests account for between 47 percent and 89 percent of what the U.N. calls "the GDP of the poor," meaning the source of livelihoods for the rural and forest-dwelling poor, according to the study.

"Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature" is the last of four reports produced by the U.N. Environmental Program over the past two years and aims to capture how habitats such as tropical forests and coral reefs contribute to countries' economic bottom lines. The authors - led by Pavan Sukhdev, a banker who heads UNEP's Green Economy Initiative - released their findings just as signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity began meeting Monday in Nagoya, Japan.

"The economic invisibility of nature is a problem," Sukhdev told reporters in a phone call Tuesday. "This is not just an issue for one species. This is actually a problem for human well-being."

Sukhdev cited the example of coral reefs, on which as many as 500 million people worldwide depend for fisheries and tourism. Economists now value reefs at between $30 billion and $172 billion per year, he said, even as they are being threatened by warmer and more acidic seas as a result of climate change.

If reefs collapse because of warming and other factors, he added, this could prompt huge numbers of people to move in Southeast Asia, Africa and other regions, causing political instability and strife. "There is a serious risk there will be significant migrations away from coastal areas," he said.

Some of the environmental benefits that economists have begun to calculate could disappear soon, the authors noted.
The pollination that forests in Sulawesi, Indonesia, provide are worth nearly $26 per acre, according to a 2007 study, but ongoing forest conversion in the region is expected to cut pollination- and by extension, coffee yields in Sulawesi - by up to 18 percent over the next 20 years.

At least two major developing countries - India and Brazil - announced Wednesday that they would embrace this method of calculating the value of natural capital when charting national policy.

The idea of incorporating ecosystem benefits into policymaking has yet to gain the same level of traction in the United States, however, where a proposal to cap greenhouse gas emissions collapsed this year after critics said it would damage the nation's economy.

"I'm not seeing, as of yet, anything firm coming from the North American continent, but I'm hoping it's a matter of time," Sukhdev said.

Andrew Deutz, who directs international government relations for the Nature Conservancy, an advocacy group, said the report could be "the Rosetta stone" for the conservation community by helping them translate concerns over species loss and habitat degradation into economic terms for policymakers.

"Our only hope to save the world's biodiversity is to help the world understand that lasting economic growth and security are wholly bound to the health and security of our natural resources," Deutz said.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/20/AR2010102000452.html?hp id=topnews