Environmental Metaphors of Scarcity

In this chapter, I will retrieve Hans Blumenberg’s metaphorology in order to apply it to the history of ecological economics. In so doing, I will undertake a case study on the epistemological constructive and destructive functions that some metaphors played in the development of ecological economics as a scientific discipline. In particular, I will investigate the “environmental metaphors of scarcity”, under which I include the metaphors of “economic metabolism”, “carrying capacity”, “ecological footprint”, and “natural capital”. Some of these metaphors were expressly aimed against the conceptual hegemony of neoclassical economics, and all of them were linked to biophysical indicators addressed at measuring sustainability and environmental impact. Thus, these metaphors can be also taken as “metric metaphors”. In this regard, I will outline a metaphorological paradigm of metrization, namely, metaphors that are terminologized through a measurement methodology. I will then argue that these metric metaphors – especially that of “natural capital” – despite their initial destructive epistemological function, provided the ground for a revival of neoclassical economics within ecological economics itself. The metric metaphors of ecological economics carried the neoclassical Trojan horses, as response to the problem of environmental accounting for the so-called natural assets and ecosystem services.