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Marco P. Vianna Franco and Antoine Missemer's book, "A History of Ecological Economic Thought," provides a comprehensive exploration of the history of ecological economic thought from the sixteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. The authors define ecological economic thought as having three key characteristics: embeddedness, interdisciplinarity, and pluralism. The book covers a wide range of ecological economic thinkers and topics, including ecological utopianism, early Soviet ecology, land economics, and the land ethic. While the distinctiveness of ecological economic thought is questioned, the book is highly recommended for those interested in the history of ecological economic thought. [Extracted from the article]

Ecological economics is an interdisciplinary science that is primarily concerned with developing interventions to achieve sustainable ecological and economic systems. While ecological economists have, over the last few decades, made various empirical, theoretical, and conceptual advancements, there is one concept in particular that remains subject to confusion: critical natural capital. While critical natural capital denotes parts of the environment that are essential for the continued existence of our species, the meaning of terms commonly associated with this concept, such as 'non-substitutable' and 'impossible to substitute,' require a clearer formulation then they tend to receive. With the help of equations and graphs, this article develops new definite account of critical natural capital that makes explicit what it means for objective environmental conditions to be essential for continued existence. The second main part of this article turns to the question of formally modelling the priority of conserving critical natural capital. While some ecological economists have maintained that, beyond a certain threshold, critical natural capital possesses absolute infinite value, absolute infinite utility models encounter significant problems. This article shows that a relative infinite utility model provides a better way to model the priority of conserving critical natural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of natural capital denotes a rich variety of natural processes, such as ecosystems, that produce economically valuable goods and services. The Anthropocene signals a diminished state of nature, however, with some scholars claiming that no part of the Earth's surface remains untouched. What are ecological economists to make of natural capital during the Anthropocene? Is natural capital still a coherent concept? What is the conceptual relationship between nature and natural capital? This article wrestles with John Stuart Mill's two concepts of nature and argues that during the Anthropocene, natural capital should be understood as denoting economically valuable processes that are not absolutely--but relatively--detached from intentional human agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]