What is the amount of average price tag on nature’s life support system determined by Robert Constanza and his colleagues?
Answers
The idea of slapping a dollar value on to an alpine meadow or the dappled green shade of a forest strikes a chill into the very bones of most environmentalists. Like love, nature is the kind of thing that money just can’t buy. Or is it? A small but growing chorus of ecological economists are saying that perhaps the best way to protect nature is to figure out just how much it’s worth — in cold, hard cash. In their quest to integrate Adam Smith with Rachel Carson, these proponents of “ecosystem valuation” are infuriating many of their colleagues: both economic evangelists preaching the gospel of the free market, and environmentalists who are horrified at the prospect of reducing the natural world to a cost-benefit analysis.
Explanation:
The idea of slapping a dollar value on to an alpine meadow or the dappled green shade of a forest strikes a chill into the very bones of most environmentalists. Like love, nature is the kind of thing that money just can’t buy. Or is it? A small but growing chorus of ecological economists are saying that perhaps the best way to protect nature is to figure out just how much it’s worth — in cold, hard cash. In their quest to integrate Adam Smith with Rachel Carson, these proponents of “ecosystem valuation” are infuriating many of their colleagues: both economic evangelists preaching the gospel of the free market, and environmentalists who are horrified at the prospect of reducing the natural world to a cost-benefit analysis.