An interesting discussion of an important topic, Dr. Soderbaum. I~m interested to read your reference of science´s political interaction in cases like the Tuzla coal ash storage. While unfamiliar with that situation, I think of the case of nuclear waste and safety, and also the case of oil tank storage disposal. In the case of nuclear waste, I have met engineers whose interest in scientific details completely excludes those of the extremely toxic waste products and the health of the surrounding society and ecosystems. In research of the Brent Spar episode of 1995 which involved the oil company Shell and the NGO Greenpeace, I found a similar dynamic in references to technical scientists and ecological scientists.
The actions in researching the situation involved trespassing, and the ultimate response by Greenpeace supporters was dynamic, and even violent in some renegade cases. The parallel approach in academia I think involves a focus on assumptions, and in addressing neoclassical/neoliberal thinking the issue of externalities is a profound one.
Moreover, the real world correlates to theories in the case of economics are of great significance. I suggest that the more aware we are as scholars of existing efforts in sustainable economic activity, the better we are in carrying out the implications of the premises of ecological economics. The participants in neoclassical enterprise, the corporate executives and their corporations, are engaged in full time advertising promotion spending millions of dollars. We can reduce those to financial numbers, but the real world impacts are not abstract.
The better informed we are about real world activities like food co-ops, and efforts to prevent biotech gmo´s, the more we can evaluate the completeness of our social and ecological parameters, and the more confident we can be of their practial nature.
Thanks for an excellent topic, and I wish I had been able to attend the conference.