Ecological economic goals from emerging scholars

Early-career ecological economists are pursuing and proposing a plurality of research agendas. These projects grow in many directions from our shared roots in ecological economics (EE). A recent symposium for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers featured theoretical work that synthesizes EE foundations with diverse bodies of knowledge and applied work that combines classic EE tools with methods from myriad other disciplines to address urgent problems under uncertainty. Those doing biophysical economics engage with the critical social sciences and vice versa. This diversity is our strength. Yet intellectual pluralism entails tensions. Disagreement can devolve into interpersonal conflict in the absence of open, direct, respectful dialogue. We call for this sort of dialogue between systems thinkers who warn about the biophysical underpinnings of liberal social justice and social scientists who theorize that much progress toward justice has proceeded despite, not because of, liberalism. Dialogue across difference is key to the future of EE as a meeting place of collaboration for divergent methodologies, epistemologies, ontologies, and theories of change toward a more just, sustainable, desirable world.