Methods

Climate change, economics and Buddhism Part I: An integrated environmental

analysis framework

Peter L. Daniels
Grifth School of Environment, Grifth University, Brisbane, 4111 Australia
a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 5 January 2009
Received in revised form 28 October 2009
Accepted 10 December 2009
Available online 18 January 2010
Keywords:
Climate change
Economics
Ethics
Environmental analysis
The maintenance of climatic conditions that support biotic integrity and human life is a critical aspect of
sustainable development. Serious instability in global economic and environmental spheres calls for an
intensive search for new paradigms guiding human understanding, motivation and action. This two-part
paper examines how central Buddhist world views and themes can contribute to effectively addressing
climate change and other sustainability problems confronting consumer economies. Environmental,
economic, ethical and cosmological dimensions of Buddhism are presented as a logical and practical basis
for reducing the climate change pressures deriving from prevailing global modes of production and
consumption. This rst paper presents an analytical framework and philosophical base for understanding the
causes and rening the goals behind human and societal endeavor. This frames the relevant adaptive
responses outlined in the concluding paper.
The paper begins by developing an innovative systems framework for analyzing major environmental
problems such as climate change. Building on this framework, we then examine Buddhist insights into the
fundamental nature of the behavior and driving forces that generate climate change. The model not only
provides an improved basis for humanenvironmental analysis in general, but is applied to demonstrate and
specify how the Buddhist world view could be operationalized to tackle anthropogenic climate change the
task is undertaken in second paper. Buddhist notions of interconnectedness, dependent origination, and
mindful consumption and production can help explain and reshape human motives and actions for climate
and other forms of environmental sustainability.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Climate change will be a classic test case for humanity. It
represents the rst environmental problem that seriously threaten
the welfare of a large proportion of world's population within this
generation's time horizon. It is unprecedented in terms of the
magnitude and complexity of causes and effects, and the requirement
that an effective solution will involved a concerted and immense
effort across the gamut of nations, cultures, technologies and scientic
elds. Several factors such as technological efciency, shifts to natural
gas, and the current global economic recession have helped mitigate
the economic and per capita intensity of greenhouse gas emissions in
many high income nations. Yet, current policy responses to strike at
the core of carbon energy dependence are readily conceived as being
too limited, disjointed, and weak, and incapable of inducing the
fundamental and extensive socioeconomic changes required to arrest
anthropogenic climate change. As a pivotal aspect of strategic
restructuring to address climate change, the various national and
regional emission trading and related schemes appear controversial,
circumscribed and a rather tenuous basis for assurance that the
solution is at hand (Giddens, 2009).
Hence, an intensive search for new, more complete, paradigmatic
approaches to guide human understanding, motivation and action
seems justied. This two-part paper builds on the proposition that the
world view or philosophy of Buddhism contains many effective
insights to change the drivers and pressures that underpin climate
change and other distresses associated with high impact economies
based on fossil fuel energy. It describes environmental, economic,
ethical and cosmological dimensions of Buddhism that form a logical
and practical basis for an adaptive and sustainable response.
The links between Buddhist perspectives on environmental
problems and ecological economics are extensive. The analysis here
begins with the premise that the central inuences upon the driving
forces of climate change are prevailing beliefs and knowledge (or
ignorance) about the welfare consequences of derivative behaviors,
environmental impacts and, ultimately, the underlying intent of these
choices and behaviors. In line with a central theme embraced in
ecological economics, this case study revolves around the notion that
the values, ethics and practices of a world view such as Buddhism can
Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 952961
An updated paper based on a presentation to the United Nations Day of Vesak 2008
Buddhist Response to Climate Change Workshop, Hanoi, Vietnam May 15, 2008.
Tel.: +61 7 3735 7189; fax: +61 7 3735 7459.
E-mail address: p.daniels@grifth.edu.au.
0921-8009/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.12.002
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Ecological Economics
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ ecol econ
reveal valuable insights into the economic behavior and institutions
underlying environmental problems (Pryor, 1991; Zadek, 1993).
Buddhism is often seen to be antithetical to economics. Yet this is
not the case. The intrinsic relevance of the world views aligned with
Buddhism aligns with broader recognition and study targeting
ethicalmetaphysical bases for economics and its professed goals
(Payutto, 1994; Phrabhavanaviriyakhun, 2008).
In this paper (Part 1) we present the philosophical base for
understanding the causes and rening the goals behind human and
societal endeavor. This sets the scene for the specic relevant adaptive
responses outlined in the second paper.
The paper begins by focusing upon the climate change challenges
of existing carbon economies and integrates, extends and applies two
socioeconomicenvironmental system analysis tools the DPSIR
framework and an elaboration of the classic IPAT equation. These two
tools are used to highlight the clear linkages between (a) the
processes and factors behind climate change and (b) Buddhism's
perspective on the nature and operation of reality. The discussion is
not presented as a religious treatise but as a practical and effective
potential basis and source of insight for relevant and effective social
and economic change for sustainability. As Mendis (1993, p.4) notes:
Buddhism is not a religion; it is a way of life. It teaches the
moral and ethical conduct for the happiness of oneself and
the welfare of the community. The Buddhist doctrines
[analyze] human life and the intrinsic nature of things based
on reasoning and rational thinking not based on an initial act
of faith.
The next section of this paper provides a brief background to the
nexus between fossil fuel, climate change and economic growth. This
is followed by an analysis of climate change by developing an
integrated framework that combines the DPSIR and (extended)
Ehrlich or IPAT approaches, with the role of values and behavior,
and identies the resulting critical links to well-being. This resulting
framework details the underlying nature of the problem and opens it
up for making the connections to the Buddhist world view. The nal
section of this rst paper colors the analytic framework with some
general and practical Buddhist insights into the fundamental sources
behind the behavior and driving forces that have lead to looming
climate change scenarios.
In the next paper, we examine how the essence of the Buddhist
world viewdeveloped here can help outline effective responses to the
threat of climate change. While the discussion revolves around the
fossil carbon consumption issue, and economic dimensions of this
issue, the Buddhism-inspired analysis and related strategies are
relevant to many other sustainability problems.
2. Background
The growing risk of potentially catastrophic climate change from
human emissions of greenhouse gases has become a prime
exemplar of the urgent need for social and economic change towards
more sustainable forms of development. The atmospheric concentra-
tions of three of the major greenhouse gases carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide all increased by about one-third
between the mid-19th Century and 2007. Furthermore, rates of
growth are higher after 1999 (Quadrelli and Peterson, 2007).
Anthropogenic sources amount to around seven per cent of overall
biotic carbon cycle mass ows and are calculated as leading directly to
an average annual increase in carbon dioxide atmospheric concentra-
tions of 1.3% (19602002) (Schlesinger, 2003). Indeed, the growing
prominence of human activities across several major natural cycles
such as those linked to phosphorus, nitrogen and sulphur has
prompted some observers to label the current era as the Anthro-
pocene (Perez and Batten, 2006).
Despite uncertainty about their ultimate impacts, the existence of
marked biophysical changes from the scale of human activity is
becoming incontrovertible. Contemporary human-induced perturba-
tion in the carbon cycle represents (within our knowledge) an
unprecedented disturbance of the critical life support systems of the
Earth in terms of its rapidity and geographical extent. This outcome is
widely accepted as entailing signicant risk of severe distress upon
human and other life on the planet.
Most of the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentra-
tion has come from a century of spectacular growth in society's
consumptionof fossil fuels primarily petroleum, coal andnatural gas
for energy.
1
Fossil fuel energy generation has both enabled and
facilitated the economic growth and associated technological change.
Apowerful driver leading to greenhouse gas emissions is the desire for
products and services (and related status and control) derived from
the transformation of natural resources. This consumption drive is
being rapidly embraced by a large share of the world's population.
Initially, much of the welfare gains frommaterial and energy resource
consumption was derived from meeting people's basic physiological
needs. With the spread of global consumer culture, and the economic
and technological capacity facilitated by fossil fuel energy, the
transformation is directed towards satisfying ever-expanding human
wants (and has been fuelled by unsustainable debt in recent decades).
It cannot be denied that fossil carbon use, and its supporting
techno-economic system, have had profound benets in terms of
nutrition, health, travel, housing, entertainment and diversity of
experience. The accessibility, highly favorable net energy return, and
rich chemical nature of these low entropy supplies have rendered
fossil energy sources as the powerhouse of the industrial and post-
industrial revolutions. However, these properties have also been
responsible for a range of challenges that confront humankind within
its wider social and environmental systems. Beyond the threat of
signicant global climate change, serious new problems have
emerged. These include the dire potential consequences of the likely
onset of peak oil for inexible, but increasingly widespread,
socioeconomic systems built on cheap carbon energy. Closely
associated with this predicament is the brooding international and
cultural conict as nation-companies grapple for access to and
control of scarce fossil fuel sources. The highly disruptive and far-
reaching chain impacts of fossil carbon use have been fomenting,
largely outside of the general public's perception, until recent decades.
3. A Systems Analysis of Climate Change an Integrated and
Comprehensive Framework for Fundamental Change
This section integrates the DPSIR model and Master or IPAT
equation to create a useful framework for identifying the primary
relationships between socioeconomic and natural environment
dimensions of climate change. To facilitate a more complete linkage
of climate change to the Buddhist world view, we rst need to make
two further extensions to this basic analytic framework.
These extensions are derived from two important assumptions.
Firstly, it is proposed that beliefs, values and ethics have a strong
inuence upon the behavioral outcomes that are manifest as the
driving forces behind environmental pressures. Although this per-
spective underplays the role of structural forces that constrain human
behavior, the inuence of beliefs and values can be seen to operate via
their conguration of goals, wants, needs, intent and choices.
Secondly, a more complete nexus with Buddhism requires an explicit
shift in focus to human welfare as the key objective of both
mainstream economic and policy prescriptions, and the Buddhist
way of life. Therefore, the overall analytic framework developed as the
1
Fossil carbon sources also have a wide range of economic applications beyond
energy. Examples include the plethora of petrochemical derivatives for clothing,
plastics, lubricants, waxes, asphalt, solvents, and fertilizer.
953 P.L. Daniels / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 952961
basis for effectively coping with climate change (and presented later
in Fig. 2) contains three main, interconnected elements : (1) the
integrated DPSIR model and IPAT equation, (2) a simple model of
behavior as the result of goals and choices derived from prevailing
beliefs and ethical systems, and (3) a central objective or end-point of
human welfare or well-being. Whilst ethics and objectivity are often
counterposed, when welfare goals are seen to be normative and
dependent upon beliefs and values, ethical considerations become
central to scientic enquiry.
The Driving ForcePressureStateImpactResponse (DPSIR)
framework has been selected for application as a basic yet very useful
device for the systematic examination of the causality ow between
human activities and nature. It focuses upon specic environmental
policy elds covering sectoral activity, resource input, and emission-
based problems such as air pollution, water, climate change, urban
environment, transport, and coastal or marine resources. The model
has been developed by the European Environmental Agency as an
adaptation of the OECD's PressureStateResponse (PSR) model. It is
extended in order to provide a more comprehensive account of the
socioeconomic activities that generate the input and waste material
and energy ows leading to environmental resource depletion and
degradation. Gabrielsen and Bosch (2003, p.6) provide a concise
description of the DPSIR:
According to this systems analysis view, social and economic
developments [driving forces] exert pressure on the environ-
ment and, as a consequence, the state of the environment
changes. This leads to impacts on e.g. human health, ecosys-
tems and materials that may elicit a societal response that feeds
back on the driving forces, on the pressures or on the state or
impacts directly, through adaptation or curative action.
This underlying structure of the DPSIR model is illustrated in Fig. 1
below.
The DPSIR model has been adopted by the majority of the
European Community nations as the best way to structure environ-
mental information concerning specic environmental problems so as
to reveal existing causes, consequences, effective responses and
trends and the dynamic relationships between these components
(Pillman, 2002). The systematic approach enables the identication of
the full range of empirical factors involved, and the prospective
assessment of the direction, nature and strength of their
interconnections.
A principal output from the DPSIR framework is the measurement
of indicators based on levels and change in the major relevant
variables for the problem theme under study. These indicators play a
valuable role in terms of building the necessary knowledge,
communication and awareness for integrated scientic, political and
public input into effective decision-making processes for sustainabil-
ity or other key societal objectives.
In terms of our discussion of how Buddhism insights might
contribute to addressing the threat of climate change, the most direct
and helpful of the empirical indicators derived from the DPSIR
framework would be those identifying and measuring the (a) sources
of environmental pressure, (b) motives and outcomes consistent with
broader socioeconomic system goals or end states, (c) the extent of
change required given the driving forcepressurestate structural
relations and, (d) the design of strategic responses (based on the rst
three factors).
While the DPSIR has a great deal to offer, it also has a number of
limitations as an adequate basis for understanding environmental
effects and the creation and implementation of effective strategic
responses. The limits include its (a) simplistic and reductionist nature,
(b) the relative neglect of the more elusive, deeper socio-cultural
factors that underlie environmental theme problems, and (c) the lack
of a consistent structure for systematically dealing with specic
factors within the model components (especially for driving forces).
We return to the socio-cultural inadequacy problem soon (as an
integral aspect of the paper's aims). However, in order to support the
improved analysis of driving forces in our discussion of climate
change (covering the D P link), the DPSIR model has been
combined with the IPAT equation. While the DPSIR model represents
an improvement from most previous approaches, the rather poor
development of the driving forces aspect in environmental problem
systemanalysis probably reects a historical neglect of social sciences
(including economics).
The general form of the IPAT equation was originally developed by
both Ehrlich and Holdren (1972) and Commoner (1971). In its more
recent incarnations, such as the Master equation, it provides a
simple but powerful description of total biophysical environmental
impact as a product of the number of people, multiplied by the
amount of output produced by each person ($s per person),
Fig. 1. The Driving ForcePressureStateImpactResponse (or DPSIR) model.
954 P.L. Daniels / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 952961
multiplied by the environmental impact of each unit of output
(a biophysical measure). Based on Graedel and Allenby (1995), the
IPAT Master equation can be simply expressed as:
I = P:A:T 1
where:
I total environmental impact (biophysical)
P population
A afuence or output or consumption per person (GDP per
capita in $s)
T environmental impact per unit of output (per person)
There are several important aspects to note regarding the basic
IPAT equation. Firstly, I or environmental impact in the IPAT
equation is not the same as the effect of impact (I) in the DPSIR
model. The DPSIR model refers to impact as human-induced
environmental change back on human activities. In the IPAT equation,
impact refers to total biophysical impact (more like P and S in the
DPSIR model).
Most importantly, the IPAT equation is limited by the fact that its
right hand side (PAT) simply states that environmental pressure stems
from the number of people, the total amount of economic activity in
which they are engaged, and the environmental impact of that activity.
Specically, afuence (A) and technology or environmental impact (T)
do not provide adequate information for understanding the full nature
of environmental pressure sources and hence the means by which these
pressures might be reduced. Afuence is simply a monetary measure of
the average per capita overall output or consumption bundle.
Technically, it is possible to have a dematerialised economy with almost
nomaterial andenergy throughputs but withvery highexchange values
as measured by GDP per capita. Afuence (GDP per capita) has no
necessary relationship to total environmental impact except via the
environmental impact per unit output (T).
Neither T nor A, as presented in the initial IPAT equation, help us
with perhaps the most important and useful information for scientic
understanding and strategic responses to specic environmental
problems. It is critical to know and measure (1) the nature and
composition of consumption or production within the overall output
bundle and, (2) the environmental impact associated with the
production and consumption per unit (often per $) of each specic
type of economic activity, or good or service. Naturally, the current
technologies associated with production and consumption are
instrumental for the latter. This is the key to the detailed analysis of
sources and derivation of potential solutions and a critical method-
ological enhancement is to disaggregate the technology (T) part of
the original IPAT equation into:
N the nature, or pattern, of consumption and production, and,
T the technology-environment relation for each specic type of
production or consumption.
This breakdown allows us to look at existing patterns and trends in
what we produce and want from the economy, and what the
consequences of these choices are for the environment. The
incorporation of this extended IPANT equation into the DPSIR
framework is shown in Fig. 2. The DPSIR focus upon analyzing
underlying driving forces behind environmental problems is clearly
aligned with a move towards the detailed measurement of environ-
mental impact sources for specic goods and services, sectors and
their relevant technologies. To date this has only been undertaken in a
rather ad hoc fashion in DPSIR studies. Kristensen (2004) describes
howenvironmental pressures of human activities are the result of the
level of each activity (in biophysical or monetary terms) and their
relevant technologies of production and consumption. The economic
activity type(N)technology (T) relation in the IPANT equation
essentially governs the driving force (D) environmental pressure
(P) linkage in the DPSIR model via emission, natural resource input
and land use factors or intensities. The product of (1) the level of
specic activity by its (2) environment-intensity, will determine the
extent to which it puts pressure on the source and sink functions
provided to humans from nature.
The benets of a more complete decomposition and analysis of
consumption (and, by corollary, production and trade) are now widely
recognized and match the strong growth in research interest in
sustainable consumption and lifestyle and demand side patterns in
recent years (Curran and Sherbinin, 2004; Ekins and Jacobs, 1995;
Spangenberg, 2003; Tukker, 2008; World Bank, 1992; Waggoner and
Ausubel, 2002). Like most environmental problems associated with
Fig. 2. The DPSIRIPANT integrated framework for understanding the causes and potential solutions for climate change a combined environmental systems analysis, values, and
welfare approach.
955 P.L. Daniels / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 952961
human activity, the best solutions do not involve just modication in
overall output levels and their environmental impacts but require the
modication of consumption patterns supported by changes in the
specic technologies associated with their underlying production and
service delivery.
The marriage of the DPISR framework and IPANT equation in our
approach (in Fig. 2) provides a more detailed basis for tackling
environmental problems both in terms of the human sources of
environmental pressure (driving forces) and how socioeconomic
activities might be guided or restructured towards more sustainable
outcomes. This integrated framework has been applied to the climate
change issue and the results are presented in Appendix 1. This table
identies an extensive list of relevant driving forces (classied in
accordance with the IPANT equation), pressures, state changes, impacts
and responses. This hybrid DPSIRIPANT analysis of human-induced
climate change provides a valuable resource in the subsequent
discussion especially in the second part of this paper which examines
the nature of responses as guided by the Buddhist world view.
Even with the more complete DPSIRIPANT model compiled above,
the framework does not include the most important interface variables
for making the link to the Buddhist world view. This task requires
incorporation of the role of values, beliefs and ethical dimensions. It is
their inuence as driving forces behind the behavioral outcomes (and
collectively, social and economic developments) that generate the
environmental pressures behind climate change. Furthermore, we need
to identify how the integrated model links to actual policy objectives
typically pivoted upon net gains in well-being. The rst set-up for
incorporating Buddhist ideas in the model links the role of values, ethics
and beliefs on goals, wants, intent, and choices, and consequent
behavior and is shown in the centre right box of Fig. 2. This value-
behavior relation has at least two main hooks into the DPSIRIPANT
systems analysis model. As shown in Fig. 2, (1) it underscores many of
the key driving forces and, (2) it congures the nature of the responses
taken to address climate change problems.
A second set-up for the link to the Buddhist perspective drops the
critical welfare or well-being component into the model (Fig. 2).
Important inuences on well-being are depicted as the traditional, if
vague, link to afuence (GDP per capita), as well as (1) those from the
nature and level of various types of consumption, (2) from environ-
mental quality impacts, and nally, (3) from the nature of goals, wants
and expectations about life and activity outcomes. These main
inuences are shown by the four arrows leading to welfare in Fig. 2.
4. Buddhism and the Roots of Anthropogenic Climate Change
The second paper in this series focuses on practical responses and
actions to address climate change. Effective change inevitably relies
upon understanding the sources of a problem. Hence, we close this
paper by using the integrated analytic framework developed to explore
how Buddhism can help explain the deeper, underlying drivers behind
human activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions.
This task is undertaken at two levels. Firstly, Buddhismprovides an
explanation of the fundamental motives and driving forces that
induce climate change. It does this by reference to the nature of the
existing belief, value and ethical systems that set human goals and
inuence choices which, in turn, encourage behavior directed towards
these goals. Brown (2008, p.1) describes how[the eco-crisis] has led
us to reassess some of the basic premises upon which modern
Western civilization is grounded and the goals towards which so
much of our energy and wealth are directed. Even the initial tenets of
Buddhism as laid out in the suttas of the Pali Canon demonstrate a
clear link between human moral systems and impact upon the natural
environment (Sandell, 1987). This valuesbehaviordriving forces
(and hence environmental impact) relation is represented in Fig. 3
below an extract from the overall framework in Fig. 2.
At a second roots level, Buddhism highlights the need to
carefully examine the actual path and conditions leading to better
well-being, satisfaction or contentment within society. The study of
the source and extent of environmental pressure and impacts is
incomplete without an explanation of how material outcomes affect
human welfare. Of course, neo-classical based economic growth
models have always assumed a simple and direct positive relationship
between material accumulation, associated services, and utility or
welfare. The fundamental questioning of this relationship is intrinsic
in Buddhist economic approaches (Zadek, 1993).
As depicted in Fig. 4 below, this second focus covers the
relationship between welfare, and both (1) afuence (A, or GDP per
capita) and (2) consumption patterns or lifestyle and time-activity
patterns (N). Consumption patterns, combined with their environ-
mental implications, have direct welfare implications but also affect
welfare through their more indirect impact on environmental state
conditions. This latter effect is signicant under a more comprehen-
sive and realistic view of well-being or quality of life that includes the
amenity, health, life support and full range of total economic values
provided by nature. The indirect environmental effect on welfare is
shown by the arrow between the DPSIR impact (I) component and
well-being on the left-hand side of Fig. 4. Finally, goals and wants set
expectations about what sorts of outcomes will be adequate for
satisfaction or perceived well-being by people and this is shown by
the link between goals and welfare in Fig. 4.
Perhaps the most important Buddhist world view principles that
can be applied for the analysis of the roots of human action behind
climate change are (a) the Four Noble Truths (or realities) and (b)
the pervasive theme of interconnectedness and interdependence of all
things in existence.
2
The latter is intimately bound up with
Fig. 3. Explaining driving forces in terms of the inuence of beliefs and goals on behavior.
2
The Four Noble Truths are (1) there is suffering existence inevitably involves
persistent dissatisfaction and related impermanence; (2) there is a cause of this
suffering; it is attachment to desire (in its various forms); (3) there is a way to end
suffering and achieve peace cease attachment to desires as they seek and rely on
sources which are intrinsically impermanent, and; (4) the way out of suffering is the
Eightfold Path (discussed in more detail in the second paper of this article) (Sumedho,
1992). Guided by the essentially interconnected nature of reality, behavior that
minimizes disruptive intervention in reality is rational and the Eightfold path is
dominated by the humanistic principles of right conduct or action and associated
knowledge, intentions and mental conditioning underlying such action. Economic
behavioral implications of Buddhist philosophy include the Middle Way with its
moderation of desire and frugality in material consumption. In order to focus on the
more direct economic issues in this paper, we do not consider the potential
implications of the Buddhism for population-related driving forces.
956 P.L. Daniels / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 952961
Buddhism's perceptions of causality relations expressed through the
notions of dependent origination and karmic law. With dependent
origination, all phenomena in reality are seen to only have a
contingent existence one that is dependent upon its connections
to, and the condition of, other phenomena (Dalai Lama et al., 2000).
Despite their seeming independence, the condition and character of
all entities are determined by that of all other entities in the universe
through a complex web of cause and effect (also referred to as
interbeing (Hanh, 1987)). Under a Buddhist view, the connected
nature of all things and events in a dualistic reality may reect the
surfacing of the truth of universal oneness.
The Four Noble Truths are a central pillar of the Buddhist world
view and it is natural that they form a primary part of the Buddhist
explanation of the roots of problematic human conditions. They reveal
much about the source of driving forces related to aspirations for
overall afuence and the nature of consumption. The rst two Noble
Truths provide most of the necessary foundation. The First Noble
Truth is that conscious experience tends to be dominated by dukkha
a difcult translation but most commonly equated to suffering
though perhaps better described as disquiet or unease. Although it
has many positive experiences, life is thought to be generally
imperfect and infused with dissatisfaction and discontent. This
condition is sometimes described as pervasive dissatisfaction
(Epstein 2005) and a pertinent observation from the Buddhist
world view would be that dissatisfaction, despite the apparent
success of consumer economies over the past 200 years, remains
largely unabated.
The Second Noble Truth reveals the source of this persistent
dissatisfaction or disappointment. It comes from clinging or attach-
ment to external, worldly phenomena in the belief that they will bring
sustained and consummate satisfaction or happiness (French 2003).
These objects of our desire include not just material goods or assets
and the services they provide but people and other animate beings as
well as ideas, social and economic roles, success and status (Webster,
2005). Unfortunately, not only does the satisfaction derived from
external object typically tend to disappoint with respect to
expectations, or diminish with familiarity and saturation, but all
worldly phenomena are impermanent and eventually change into a
different form or state where they no longer comprise the source of
benet originally expected from them. Hence, their loss is inevitable
and dissatisfaction and disappointment inevitably ensue.
The perplexing aspect to this process is that people do not seem to
realize and learn that this attachment-seeking does not bring the
desired results. Ignorance of the true nature of well-being persists
despite repeated empirical experience that grasping for external
happiness sources does not work in terms of sustained satisfaction.
Much of human activity is directed by this craving and, in secular life,
people seem to be effectively bound by thoughts and actions derived
from a belief system with an incorrect theory of happiness (Ash,
2007; Tideman, 2001). From the Buddhist world view, a major
constraint on better-functioning economies yielding sustainable
happiness is ignorance about the Second Noble Truth leading to
behavior that has negative consequences in accordance with the
pervasive and marked co-dependence amongst all things. As per the
2nd Noble Truth, the lack of knowledge about the actual path to well-
being leads to, in economic terms, a mismatch between actual or
observed preferences, and true preferences. True preferences
represent life choices that genuinely enhance satisfaction (Tomer,
1996). This outcome is also consistent with the persistent overesti-
mation of people's own expected satisfaction gains from increased
income and consumption (projection bias) (Loewenstein et al.,
2003).
The prevailing belief within consumer market societies is that the
primary directives of life activity should be directed towards pleasure
and usefulness (and hence welfare gains) obtained from the
accumulation and control of stable phenomena of the external
world. In contrast, Buddhism predicts an eternal gap between
(1) object-attachment desires and wants, and (2) actual fulllment
or satisfaction received from biophysical reality. If the belief in
potential satisfaction from worldly phenomena dominates, socioeco-
nomic systems form a treadmill that never delivers the anticipated
results.
There are minimum human needs that must be met to avert
physiological deprivation. Market economies in high-income nations
have generally been very successful at achieving this. However, in
the consumer culture that characterizes these economies, the desire
to satisfy wants is constantly created and expanded has become a
major motive of people's lives, thoughts and actions. The prolifer-
ation of desire and quest for material super-abundance permeates
almost every aspect of global market societies (Bhikkhu Bodhi,
1987). The resulting system of craving reproduces itself with
structures that have embedded the want satisfaction capability
belief and is replete with actors who are addicted to an irrational
process of striving for short-term satisfaction of dynamic and
endless wants. Consumption becomes an end in itself. A substantial
part of the global market economy is predicated upon and supported
by stimulating such desire (tanha) and maintaining the want-satis-
faction gap.
The misguided nature of existing consumer culture beliefs about
what will bring welfare probably represents the core issue in this
analysis. Desire for maximum consumption via material good
accumulation, derived services, and control over people for self-
satisfaction, drives economic and lifestyle choices and is the natural
economic (if not the social) outcome of a belief system based on the
principle that the external world is the ultimate source of happiness
(Tideman, 2001).
3
Human institutions, technologies and infrastruc-
ture that originally developed to satisfy basic needs have grown to
facilitate natural resource consumption for greed, excess and the
relentless grasping for material satisfaction. The accumulation frenzy
has required, and resulted in, prodigious natural resource extraction
and global labor force exploitation powered largely by the capabilities
endowed by fossil fuel energy. Extensive biophysical intervention
Fig. 4. The relevant model linkages explaining welfare.
3
Note that economics as a discipline has been focused upon getting the most
welfare from material goods and the services they provide. However, more open,
contemporary approaches such as ecological economics highlight physical and mental
welfare directly from natural resources (e.g. life support, amenity and ecological or
ecosystem services), leisure, social capital and networks, community, freedom and
choice.
957 P.L. Daniels / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 952961
associated with fossil carbon has led to the looming problems of
marked climate change.
Related to the 2nd Noble Truth, the other major Buddhist principle
that helps explain the fundamental roots of the climate change
pressures from human action is that of pervasive interdependence
and dependent origination. This is akin to a universal ecology and
symbiosis, or a web of cause-effect relations between all universal
phenomena. Intervention from an original source that is unskillful,
or causes harm or violence, will emanate out through the web of
existence and return to negatively impact the source (Yeh, 2006). In
this sense, the welfare of all phenomena outside an individual
directly affects their own welfare. Self-interest becomes consistent
with unselshness. Compassion, wisdom and loving-kindness be-
come the rational directive and logical ethic for choices and behavior
and apply across the full gamut of people's social relationships, and
the relationships between themselves and nature (Batchelor and
Brown, 1992).
In Buddhist cosmology, reality can be divided into three spheres
or realms of existence (1) the individual (covering existence,
thought and action), (2) the collective interrelations or institutions
that form society, and (3) the rest of the natural world (Yamamoto
2003). In accordance with karmic law, the ripples fromintent and
action spill across the three realms and ow back to have welfare
effects on the originator (see Fig. 5). Thus interdependence is a
fundamental basis for environmental care and stewardship (Loy and
Watts, 1998).
This view of the nature of reality has much in common with the
new wave of environmental sciences (for example, ecological
economics, ecology, contemporary social ecology and natural health)
and their central adoption of concepts such as holism, interdiscipli-
narity, the embedding of the economy within society and nature, and
recognition of the full range and extent of life cycle, spillovers and
ow-on effects of human choices and activity (Bookchin, 1993; Daly
and Farley, 2004).
Given the primacy of interdependence, it becomes critical to
carefully examine the means and implications involved in the
pursuit of gains in well-being. If the process involves high levels of
intervention and disturbance from the initiating source (a
characteristic of fossil fuel dependence), then the web of cause
effect relations between the three realms will have unintended
negative consequences for the well-being of the instigators. This is
apparent with the troubling climate change, infrastructural
vulnerability, and political conict that is now confronting the
current carbon-based world economy. Such sensitive interdepen-
dence portends the inherent wisdom of the Buddhist advocacy
of the Middle Way with its careful focus upon moderation and
meeting true well-being needs with minimal and non-violent
intervention.
Together, the Four Noble Truths and interconnected nature of
reality provide a key insight. The realization is that maximization of
afuence and output derived from economic activity types (N) with
high levels of social and natural environmental impact (T) will fail to
close the desirewant satisfaction gap. Furthermore, these
behaviors will have additional negative welfare effects upon humans
via the impact (I) factor in the DPSIR model (as shown in Fig. 4).
Similarly, discontent will be exacerbated by a value system where
goals and expectations are incorrectly predicated on the idea that
well-being is a function of increasing consumption.
Unfortunately, fossil fuel-based consumer economies have all of
these characteristics. In Buddhism, human-induced material,
energy and waste ows are disturbances in the karmic cause-effect
web and their neglect in assessing the consequences of choice and
levels of economic activity will jeopardize intended welfare
outcomes. This makes it easy to explain the double whammy of
the past 60 years of spectacular fossil fuel-based economic growth
where happiness levels within nations do not seem to be increasing
(the Easterlin Paradox), and yet resource use and degradation
have reached unsustainable and possibly ecosphere catastrophe
levels (Baucells and Sarin, 2007; Daniels, 2007). The relentless
drive for the economic extraction and transformation of nature for
economic wealth has not had the anticipated positive impact on
subjective well-being. Indeed, craving for material wealth has not
only failed to signicantly reduce suffering (increase well-being)
but has increased environmental destruction and instability
(Mendis, 1993).
5. Conclusion
Across its two papers, this article examines how central Buddhist
world views and themes can contribute to effectively addressing
climate change by looking deep within the ethical, economic and
ecological nature of consumer market economies. Insights from
Buddhism are presented as a logical and practical basis for required
changes in prevailing global modes of production and consumption. A
persistent theme of our approach is the structured analysis of climate
change in terms of the drivers, pressures, and responses that stem
from societal beliefs and world views about human actions and
choices, and their links to human goals and well-being. Buddhist
notions of interconnectedness, dependent origination, and mindful
consumption and production can help explain and reshape human
motives and actions for climate and other forms of environmental
sustainability.
This introductory paper has set the background by rst developing
a new, integrated systems framework for analyzing major environ-
mental problems such as climate change. This framework is built by
integrating two major environmental assessment tools (the DPSIR
and modied IPAT approaches), and the product is subsequently
extended to include the key roles of, and connections, to values and
well-being. The resulting tool is designed as an appropriate basis for
examining the fundamental sources, relationships and possible
responses to climate change, in terms of human beliefs, thought,
behavior and social patterns and structures.
With this framework at hand, the paper then explores Buddhism's
ideas about the nature of reality, and denition and appropriate
means of attaining real improvements in well-being. It focuses on
two areas (1) explaining the ultimate sources of major climate
change driving forces in terms of beliefs and values; goals, wants and
choices; and realized behavior, and (2) the related linkages between
the level (afuence) and nature of consumption, environmental
impact and well-being. The most important contributions from
Buddhismare discussed as its discourse on the nature of human well- Fig. 5. Interconnectedness between the three spheres of existence.
958 P.L. Daniels / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 952961
being and the interdependence which explains the adverse con-
sequences of anthropogenic disruption and disturbance of the
processes and ows of the natural environment. Its real strength is
in the guidelines that it provides for consumption and related
production imperatives and choices that drive the environmental
pressures behind climate change.
The mode of analysis has had much in common with
ecological economics with primary conceptual and methodo-
logical roles ascribed to ethics, the ecologization of society, social
capital and sustainability, and ultimate means and ends via an
extensive consideration of well-being and the goals of human
endeavor. Specic strategic changes, derived from the superim-
position of the ancient wisdom of Buddhism upon the compre-
hensive environmental systems analysis framework are presented
and discussed in Part 2 of this article in a forthcoming issue of
Ecological Economics.
Appendix 1. An analysis of climate change using the integrated IPANT and DPSIR framework
4
D driving forces
1. Population (P)
2. Total output or consumption (afuence) (A)
3. Composition of output (N)
Consumption-oriented
* Agesex structure * Consumption cluster composition
clothing; education/training;
food; health care; construction/
housing; hygiene; cleaning;
recreation; social life; transport
* Recreational
activities/choices
including travel;
tourism
* Environment impacts and state;
knowledge; awareness; proximity to
critical environ thresholds and
unsustainable limits e.g. climate
change and cooling; congestion; diet * Lifestyle; tastes; preferences; marketing; status denitions * Environmental
preferences;
knowledge;
awareness
* Diet
* Income
* Education,
research
* Resource (material and energy)
availability; relative abundance
and access
* Heating and
cooling water;
ambient/building
* Eco-efcient industry e.g.
recycling; insulation
* Political participation; empowerment * Technology
change and
innovation
(product and
process)
* Equity; distribution * Water sources; availability;
demand treatment raw and
sewage
* Government economic and social
policy affected the nature and
distribution of output
Production-oriented
Arguably, largely a result of consumption demand; and production, consumption and trade balances
* Industrial production structure (excl. agriculture and mining) * Relative abundance of factors of
production
* Agricultural
output type and
area
* Waste treatment system and
infrastructure
* Climate change
Secondary
* Spatial distribution of residential and economic activity density; urban form * Transport
infrastructure
4. Technology based environment-intensity or eco-efciency of each output type (T
N
) governs material and energy input need and waste emissions per unit output type
* Household size
* Lifestyle; tastes; preferences; marketing; status denitions * Environmental preferences;
knowledge; awareness
conservation behaviour and
product eco-efciency choice
* Spatial
distribution of
residential and
economic activity
density; urban
form; land use
* Transport infrastructure and
technology
* Transport mode mix
* Resource availability; relative abundance and access * Industrial production
infrastructure (type, age)
* Energy generation
infrastructure
* Agricultural technology for output
type e.g. rice paddies; aquaculture;
fertilizer use
* Waste treatment system and infrastructure landll * Water sources; availability;
demand treatment raw and
sewage
* Mining
technology
P pressure (environmental)
* Emissions of greenhouse gasescarbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide; sulphur hexauoride, peruorocarbons, and hydrouorocarbons; water vapour
Secondary and interactive pressures
* Fossil fuel use * Deforestation
4
Based on numerous sources including Liotta (2003).
(continued on next page)
959 P.L. Daniels / Ecological Economics 69 (2010) 952961
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