SupplySide Sustainability Author:Professor Timothy F. H. Allen, Professor Joseph A. Tainter, Professor Thomas W. Hoekstra, Timothy F. H. Allen, Joseph A. Tainter, Thomas W. Hoekstra While environmentalists urge lower consumption of resources for a sustainable future, economists dismiss the notion that resources constrain modern, creative societies. The conflict between these views tinges political debate at all levels, and hinders our ability to plan for the future. Supply-Side Sustainability offers a fresh approach... more » to this dilemma. It is the first book to integrate ecological and social science in an interdisciplinary treatment of sustainability. Written by two ecologists and an anthropologist, the discussions in Supply-Side Sustainability range across organisms, landscapes, populations, communities, biomes and the biosphere, and ecosystems and energy flows. The book explains sustainability and collapse in human societies ranging from hunter-gatherers to empires and today's industrial world. These diverse topics are integrated within a new framework that derives from the authors' previous work in hierarchy and complexity theory. The authors argue that sustainability is an outcome of informed, active management, rather than a passive consequence of merely consuming fewer resources. The emphasis throughout the book is to develop approaches to management and problem solving that are cost effective, so that problem solving efforts are themselves sustainable. The framework of the book provides guidance for cost-effective management of biophysical systems and human institutions. The authors demonstrate that sustainability and cost-effective management are achieved by managing the contexts of productive systems, rather than by managing the commodities that natural systems produce. Within this framework there are roles for conservation, commerce, and small but effective government. Supply-Side Sustainability thus offers an approach to sustainability and the environment that supersedes today's gridlock.« less