Chapter 5. Chapter 5: Environmental Economics and Consumption

What are ecosystem services?...

Why You Should Care

It is hard to imagine all of the ways that the environment around us contributes to our lives. It is easy to measure how much food we eat or how much paper we use, but there are dozens of other contributions that are harder to measure (how much energy goes into making a cell phone, how much land is needed to recycle all the carbon dioxide a person produces, etc). These contributions are called ecosystem services.

Even if we could accurately measure those smaller contributions in terms that made sense (acres of forest, farmland, and wetlands, trees to produce oxygen, etc.), we know that it is hard to measure what value to place on each contribution. Should the forest have more value than wetlands (and does this reflect our being more familiar with forests than swamps?) Can we assign a monetary value to these contributions? Who sets that value? Is a forest in Georgia worth the same as a forest in Brazil?

The process of placing a monetary value on an ecosystem service forces us to recognize the direct importance of sustainable practices for keeping natural systems and ourselves alive. The value may not include every possible aspect, but it reminds and informs our decision-making.