ABSTRACT
There is common ground between social history, economic history and environmental history, between ecological economics and political ecology, between sustainability science and environmental sociology. It lies in the three-tier relation between the increasing social metabolism of human economies pushed by population and economic growth, the ecological distribution conflicts among human groups, and the different languages of valuation deployed by such groups when they reaffirm their rights to use the environmental services and products in dispute. Authors working on ‘industrial metabolism’ or in ‘social metabolism’ look at the economy in terms of flows of energy and materials (Ayres 1989; Fischer-Kowalski 1998; Fischer-Kowalski and Huettler 1998; Haberl 2001; Martinez-Alier 2007 a, b). The economy is a system embedded in the environment, open to the entry of energy and materials, and to the exit of waste. In this chapter we will walk together through social metabolism, ecological distribution conflicts, languages of valuation, and their links.
