When I took the ‘Environment & Population Assement’ class last year, we had an economic professor from Rice University come in and give a guest lecture on the economics of environmental policy-making. To be honest, he went a little too in-depth into economic theories for a public health class. But I did learn about the basic economics that influence decision making. And one of the fundamental difficulties is putting a value to the benefits provided by nature.
Breath in. The air is free. But we’d all agree it’s not worthless. So, what’s the price tag on benefits provided by nature? In 1997, the University of Vermont’s Robert Costanza and his co-authors put the answer at $33 trillion per year in a now-famous paper in the journal Nature. In the decade following, the science of “ecosystem services” has bloomed. This young discipline studies how nature–through climate regulation, soil formation, crop pollination, flood protection, and so on–supports human welfare, and estimates its value in economic terms.
A sizeable grant from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation is helping fund a project to “create a set of computer models and tools that will give a sophisticated portrait of the ecosystem dynamics and value for any spot on earth“. If it is successful, it will certainly provide a fast way for policy makers to comprehend the impacts of their decisions.
Technorati Tags: economics, ecosystem services, environment
1 Comment
March 3, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Most of our medication, pills, and such come from plants 70% from dense jungle forest plants, we rely on the life saving properties of these plants everyday. I`d say nature is worth everything.