Economics Without Ecocide: A Case for Degrowth

Peter G. Brown, Professor at McGill University in the School of Environment, the Department of Geography, and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences.

Presented by the David O'Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at the John Molson School of Business

Friday, September 16, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. – noon
Concordia University MB Building, Room MB 6.240
1450 Guy Street (de Maisonneuve Blvd. West), Montreal, Quebec. View map

Professor Brown will argue that the current economic system is a principal driver in the decline of the Earth’s life support systems.   A complete rethinking of the disciplines of economics and finance is required; as well as macro-economic policy.  A successful economy must be based on: 1) a scientific understanding of the world; 2) scaled to fit that world; 3) governed, in part, by global fiduciary institutions; 4) concerned with fairness to persons and other species; and 5) measure what is important.  The fundamentals of such a system will be described and advanced as the model of the “green” economy sought as part of the RIO + 20 conferences.  

About Peter G. Brown

Professor Brown’s teaching, research, and service are concerned with ethics, governance, and the protection of the environment.  His appointments at McGill are in the School of Environment, the Department of Geography, and the Department of Natural Resource Sciences. He was the first full time Director of the McGill School of Environment.  The McGill School of Environment is involved in building programs with McGill’s Faculties of Arts, Science, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, as well as Religious Studies, Law, Engineering, Management, and Medicine. Before coming to McGill he was Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland’s graduate School of Public Affairs.  While at the University of Maryland he founded the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, as well as the School of Public Policy itself.  Professor Brown established the School’s Environmental Policy Programs to operate not only at the University’s College Park campus, but also at Maryland’s Department of the Environment, and at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. He has taught at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Washington, and at St. John's College in Annapolis. He is currently a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Humans and Nature.


For more information, please contact:

Andrew Ross
David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise
John Molson School of Business
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514-848-2424 ext. 5131