Introduction

This chapter sets out the problem: is there an inevitable tension between economy and environment or can they live harmoniously together? The chapter takes a pluralist approach to the question, answering it from a range of approaches and using issues including climate change, biodiversity loss and water pollution as examples of evidence of possible tension. The chapter also outlines how early economists – including physiocrats, mercantilists and classical economists – approached this question. The chapter closes by laying out the schools of economics whose approaches to the environment are covered in the book. These are neoclassical economics, environmental economics, ecological economics, green economics and Marxist economics.