$5,000,000,000,000 (at least $5 trillion): The cost each year of vanishing rainforest

[Turborama]

Source: The Independent on Sunday

British researchers set out the economic impact of species destruction - and their findings are changing world's approach to global warming

By Matt Chorley, Political Correspondent
Sunday, October 03 2010 -

British scientific experts have made a major breakthrough in the fight to save the natural world from destruction, leading to an international effort to safeguard a global system worth at least $5 trillion a year to mankind.

Groundbreaking new research by a former banker, Pavan Sukhdev, to place a price tag on the worldwide network of environmental assets has triggered an international race to halt the destruction of rainforests, wetlands and coral reefs.

With experts warning that the battle to stem the loss of biodiversity is two decades behind the climate change agenda, the United Nations, the World Bank and ministers from almost every government insist no country can afford to believe it will be unaffected by the alarming rate at which species are disappearing. The Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, later this month will shift from solely ecological concerns to a hard-headed assessment of the impact on global economic security.

The UK Government is championing a new system to identify the financial value of natural resources, and the potential hit to national economies if they are lost. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb) project has begun to calculate the global economic costs of biodiversity loss. Initial results paint a startling picture. The loss of biodiversity through deforestation alone will cost the global economy up to $4.5trn (£2.8trn) each year – $650 for every person on the planet, and just a fraction of the total damage being wrought by overdevelopment, intensive farming and climate change. The annual economic value of the 63 million hectares of wetland worldwide is said to total $3.4bn. In the pharmaceutical trade, up to 50 per cent of all of the $640bn market comes from genetic resources. Anti-cancer agents from marine organisms alone are valued at up to $1bn a year.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/5000000000000-the-cost-each-year-of-vanishing-rainforest-2096367.html

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80 per cent of the world's remaining terrestrial biodiversity live in forests


This is a subject I have been interested in for several years.

This Wikipedia article is a good primer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics">Ecological Economics

As is this book, which is available to download as an "e-book" here: http://www.eoearth.org/article/An_Introduction_to_Ecological_Economics_(e-book)">An Introduction to Ecological Economics

[GaYellowDawg]

1. It's a shame they have to put saving biodiversity in terms of $$$

But if it gets a bunch of rich bastards to change the dialogue, whatever works.

[Lorien]

3. +1

I wish that our party still talked about and cared about this issue. I say that about a lot of traditional issues of ours, though. :-(

[suede1]

4. Me too.

How right you are.

[sabrina 1]

5. I guess in our 'greed-filled' world, nothing else has

worked. If money is responsible for the destruction of the planet, maybe finding a way to make saving it financially attractive, will make them stop and think. Assuming that their only concern IS money and they are not out to destroy the planet just for the sake of doing so.

[Omaha Steve]

2. K&R!

[sabrina 1]

6. Some good news even if a little late, on this issue at last.

I hope it's not too late. Thanks for posting, Turborama.

[Turborama]

9. I hope it's not too late, too

Otherwise everything else pales into insignificance.

My pleasure, good to see you in LBN. :hi:

[Turborama]

7. Oops! I forgot to mention that the ebook is free

And it is a "real" well worth reading book that is also available as a hard copy. IOW it's not just a bunch of academic papers thrown together into different chapters and turned into PDF files to be distributed on the internet.

[sabrina 1]

10. Thanks for the information. I will definitely check it out. This is

such an important issue but gets so little attention.

[Overseas]

8. K&R! //nt

[howaboutme]

11. B-but-but-but the world needs jobs and capitalists need money

That's what the Republicans and Marcellus Shale drillers are telling the people here while they destroy aquifers that took millions upon millions of years with chemicals and can never be replaced.

They say we need jobs jobs jobs. Hey when the world has destroyed our ecosystems so that the greedy bastards can get richer jobs the money will mean nothing.

That all said I'm a believer in reducing or eliminating population growth as it puts a huge pressure on the environment.

[sabrina 1]

12. Yes, Capitalism kills, people, the environment. I wonder if they

realize that once they destroy everything for profit, as you point out, no amount of money will mean anything. Do they think they will survive somehow? Do they never think of their own children?

I really wonder if this planet can survive the greed of the current inhabitants.

[howaboutme]

13. Financialization the tool of those obsessed with money and greed

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Financialization

I blame the decline of the world on this one term. "FINANCIALIZATION" and those that thrive on it. Money is their God and greed their sickness. They never have enough and they is nothing they won't do to get more. Power provides access.

[Quantess]

14. K & R

[Uncle Joe]

15. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Turborama.