Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Farming is the most significant human management system of the planet; the future of humans on the planet largely rests upon how we manage our farmscapes. If we accept this then it has profound implications for agricultural policy for it means that ‘managing the planet’ is almost as an important task of the farming system as supplying food.
But what is “natural capital”? And why use it to refer to “nature”?
Soil is a vital resource that the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates contributes about USD $16.5 trillion in ecosystem services annually.
If a tree falls in the forest, what does it cost?
Until recently terms like “carbon accounting,” “carbon footprint,” and “carbon offsetting” would have raised some quizzical eyebrows among the general public. Today, such carbon-based metrics are everywhere, but are they helpful or unhelpful in motivating the necessary action on climate change?
Can cultural aesthetics be meaningfully quantified? And if so, can an ecosystem gain/lose value when cultural values shift?
“Are individuals entitled to wealth created by society . . . or should this wealth belong to society as a whole?”
Infinite-Planet Thinking is deeply embedded in our political economy.
Last week’s discussion of externalities—costs of doing business that get dumped onto the economy, the community, or the environment, so that those doing the dumping can make a bigger profit—is, I’m glad to say, not the first time this issue has been raised recently.
Some people object to the concept of “natural capital” because they say it reduces nature to the status of a commodity to be marketed at its exchange value.
Aniol Esteban is head of Environmental Economics at the New Economics Foundation. I started by asking what, for him, is the link between nature and wellbeing?
In the wake of declining political will for environmental protection, many in the environmental community are advocating for the monetization of nature.
