Hurry and Grab Your Wallet, Earth is on SALE: Putting A Price on Nature
2.5-minute read
Humans, masters of linear thinking, may have outsmarted themselves when they devised ways to price things that were perhaps never meant to be priced.
Trees and square feet, we have assigned dollar amounts to these. With climate chaos only just beginning to simmer, the question that keeps coming up is:
What is biodiversity, our ecosystems— what is nature—this planet, REALLY worth?
We see over and over again that unrestrained development can create massive economic gains and environmental disasters. Corporate social responsibility and sustainable development are the growing buzzwords of this next decade. When we talk about development and conducting business, we are finally beginning to have a more widespread awareness and conversation about the environmental impacts associated with economic progress.
Companies want to know: “What are the products of this ecosystem worth?”
What a challenge it is, as an environmentally conscious person, to try and quantify nature’s objects and experiences into a finite dollar figure.
My first glimpses under a microscope at soil and water samples gave me an awareness of universes that existed in smaller and larger contexts than my own limited experience had yet shown me as a child. The more I studied, the more I began to understand the intricate relationship between microbiological life and the larger organisms and systems we witness with the naked eye.
So how in the world could I quantify what a virgin forest full of life is worth to the logging company and to the mayor?
It’s undoubtedly easier to stick a price on an object that we have isolated within our minds, but the reality is, even a tree is performing over a dozen ecosystem services when it simply appears to only be standing there, doing nothing.
I understand the economic benefit and practicality of placing prices on natural resources. Simultaneously, this practice of dishing out price tags on our natural world can be disastrous.
Arguably, one of the most popular environmental impact approaches is one of “offsetting.” “Company X” buys “Plot A” of virgin land for resource extraction, and in exchange, it preserves another area that’s been evaluated as equivocal.
Are we always so sure that our evaluation of these systems and their bioregions are of quality and sufficient?
A concern was raised that “if we don’t put a price on biodiversity, it will continue to be treated as a secondary issue.” This perspective has some weight from our current global economy and value system’s standpoint; however, I could argue that putting a price on biodiversity casts it off the priority value pedestal. Here’s why:
If you can put a price tag on nature, the world’s global value system is locked in at valuing fiat currency as the single most valuable item, because at that point, it can purchase anything.
A concern was raised that “if we don’t put a price on biodiversity, it will continue to be treated as a secondary issue.” This perspective has some weight from our current global economy and value system’s standpoint; however, I could argue that putting a price on biodiversity casts it off the priority value pedestal. Here’s why:
War is being waged inside our values system—but does it need to?
Can we prioritize environmental health on the premise that: without it, there is no healthy economy?
Price-placing is a very human construct. Humans aside, organisms in nature have no fiat currency exchange system nearly as complex and obfuscated as we do.
We are beginning to witness the repercussions of an economic-growth-centric values system. It sure sounds utopic and idealist, yet we still see this ancient example in indigenous communities where the primary value is the natural world. Care for the environment ensures prosperity for the people.
To put a price tag on nature would be to put a price tag on “God.”
How can we reward innovation, production, manufacturing, and distribution of services and products while respecting and preserving the health and biodiversity of our home, Earth?
Are there alternatives to putting monetary prices on infinitely complex natural systems?