Many of the attempts at a concise definition of economics mention ‘resources’, ‘the Earth’, ‘the environment’; for example, ‘economics is essentially the stewardship of resources’ (Hanson, 1977); or ‘economics offers a framework within which to analyse the problems which we face in making choices about the environment in which we live’ (Hodge, 1995: 3); or ‘economics is concerned with the allocation, distribution and use of environmental resources’ (Perman et al., 1996: 24). It is thus puzzling why, before the last decade, there was little contact between economics and environmental studies. The failure to weave environmental sensitivity into economics has been flagged as a cause of many of the world’s problems. Given the difficulties involved in effectively valuing nature, and in dealing with human use of the environment and resources, such criticisms are perhaps unfair. Nevertheless, before the 1980s few economists recognised that the Earth was finite and most encouraged expansion, and there was little effort to remedy things.