ABSTRACT
Disciplinary perspectives are based on certain recognizable pre-analytic (axiomatic) assumptions. This chapter explores assumptions that are fundamental to the ecological perspective and their implications for how the human economy is dependent on the natural environment. Specifically, the chapter provides the fundamental ecological arguments for recognizing the bounds (i.e., biophysical limits) on the transformation and use of the natural environment to satisfy human material ends. Three important issues are emphasized: (1) the importance of material cycling and recycling, (2) the limits and opportunities of energy conservation through technological means, and (3) the significance of biodiversity to the vitality and resilience of the natural ecological systems to long term sustainability of the human economy. The chapter reveals the implications of some rather disturbing human induced ecological simplifications. Although the ecological perspective is admittedly biocentric (viewing humans primarily as agents of disturbance), it highlights that sustainability requires the natural environment (i.e., all living and non-living things occurring on earth) to not be simply viewed as a ‘gift of nature’ ready to be exploited by humans and in strict accordance to the laws of demand and supply.
