Rigo Melgar is a Ph.D. candidate in Ecological Economics in the , a Gund Institute for Environment Graduate Fellow, and a fellow of the transnational between ̽̽ and McGill University.
Melgar is working alongside advisors Dr. Jon D. Erickson and Dr. Joshua Farley to inform the theory of ecological macroeconomics. His focus is on the implications of the financialization of the U.S. economy for a just energy transition and thinking beyond GDP metrics to incorporate the goals of wellbeing economies. Melgar is a past recipient of the Rubenstein School’s Outstanding Ph.D. Research and Scholarship Award, which recognizes doctoral students’ exceptional work and contributions to their field of study.
Melgar recently spoke at a launch event for ̽̽’s Planetary Health Initiative, where he applied an economic lens to the initiative and shared a vision for ̽̽’s future.
What does “Planetary Health” mean to the ̽̽ community?
Many of us see the Planetary Health Initiative as representing a call for a paradigm shift in academia to refocus our resources to study and provide solutions to the root causes within our socio-economic systems that are undermining the health of people and the rest of nature. It’s exciting, because this initiative provides ̽̽ with a pathway to become a leader in rethinking and modernizing higher education, so it is fit for purpose to tackle the intertwined social and ecological challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. I’m grateful to Interim President Prelock and her team for leading this amazing initiative.
In what ways does Planetary Health intersect with your research in economics?
I work in ecological economics, which is a transdisciplinary field of economics that I became passionate about in my undergraduate studies after learning from my advisor Dr. Charles Hall. Dr. Hall is a systems ecologist, he taught me how energy drives economic activity and how its rate of consumption impacts the health of our planet. Dr. Erickson and Dr. Farley pioneered the field at the Gund Institute, which is why I came to ̽̽.
You see, ecology and economics share the same Greek root, oikos, meaning “house” or “household”, where ecology means the “study of the house” and economics means the “management of the house”. By transcending disciplinary boundaries and the false separation of humans from the rest of nature, ecological economics re-embeds the natural and social sciences in nature. It considers our planetary boundaries and how to manage human impact to foster sustainable, just, efficient, sufficient and resilient long-term wellbeing economies. So, planetary health is at the core of the ecological economics model.
What is a wellbeing economy?
A is designed to serve people's needs within the limits of a living and healthy planet. It fundamentally calls for system-level change to prioritize wellbeing as the most important end goal of economic activity. This contrasts with the current economic paradigm that treats economic growth as an end in and of itself, leading to the unsustainable, unjust and inefficient outcomes driving the calls for planetary health today. Importantly, there is not a prescribed guide on how to develop wellbeing economies. The goal is to be flexible and context-specific to empower and enable diverse stakeholders to understand what wellbeing means to their communities. They can then democratically prioritize wellbeing targets in their budgets and policy decisions that are sustainable, just, efficient, sufficient and build long-term resilience.
How do you think ̽̽ should begin implementing the Planetary Health initiative?
Planetary Health isn’t new at ̽̽ – there is a lot of active and creative research, teaching, and theory-to-action work already happening in this realm. But I think for those of us who see the need for academia to be more flexible, collaborative, and action-oriented, we know that to intentionally implement the initiative the ̽̽ community needs to understand that we have the capacity to get out of our silos. We need to collaborate to enable flourishing research, education, and solutions.
As a student in the L4E project, dedicated to promoting mutually enhancing relationships between humans and the rest of nature in higher education, I see a lot of opportunity for effectively implementing the planetary health initiative from the ground up:
- Continue to promote diversity and wellbeing among the ̽̽ community.
- Develop a planetary health module or course for all students so that they can understand their relationship and responsibility with the rest of nature and diverse cultures. ̽̽ already has a sustainability requirement that could take the form of this course for both undergraduate and graduate students.
- Modernize tenure track position requirements to consider metrics that incentivize and provide flexibility for scholars to translate knowledge into action in our communities and beyond.
- Promote diversity of thought, especially in fields such as economics, through education, research, and collaboration with student clubs. One example is the club, which I co-founded. We are dedicated to promoting diversity of economic thought for planetary health by engaging with multiple departments at ̽̽, which ties in perfectly with the collaborative nature of this initiative.
- Support theory-to-action initiatives such as the in which faculty and students can collaborate with our communities to co-create a wellbeing economy. Dr. Erickson and I have been contributing to this project through educational and empowering workshops, where we have applied ecological economics through the doughnut economic framework with diverse stakeholders in Vermont and at ̽̽.
- Take ̽̽ to the world and fulfill its educational mission by supporting initiatives that seek to make the knowledge we generate open access to all who can benefit from it. An example of this is , an open access educational initiative I launched with the support of my advisors and peers in 2020.
What do you hope to see come from the Planetary Health Initiative in the months and years ahead?
A quote from Donella Meadows, the mother of systems thinking and a champion of sustainability, comes to mind. In 1993 she wrote: “The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clear air, capital, labor, or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and learn from each other and to seek the truth rather than seek to be right. Because we have not done that, another resource has become critically scarce, time.”
I hope to see every aspect of the ̽̽ community empowered and involved by being willing to co-learn together and apply systems thinking in this collaborative effort. Ultimately, taking inspiration from Captain Planet, a show I grew up watching, “the power is [ours]” to transform ̽̽ into a leader of planetary health from the ground up to promote wellbeing economies that can enable all of us to thrive.
