http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10103179.stm
"An ongoing project known as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is attempting to quantify the monetary value of various services that nature provides for us.
These services include purifying water and air, protecting coasts from storms and maintaining wildlife for ecotourism.
The rationale is that when such services disappear or are degraded, they have to be replaced out of society's coffers."
How ridiculous is this? That we can put a price on eco system services is ludicrous! and who does it benefit to formulate such a price?
If we have a 200 hectare area of rain forest, the most intensely bio-diverse habitat known, and owned by a company, do they care how much the ecosystem services of that forest is worth? No they don't because to the company the only profit to be made is from bringing the timber to market and then re using the land for some other profit making development. It doesn't matter if the ecosystem services are worth 4 hundred or 4 billion dollars for our small stretch of forest because that value cannot be converted to cash in the bank.
From a corporate perspective, the only one that counts when converting natural resources into profit, the value of the ecosystem services provided are 0$ and always will be. That at some point in the future we will use the profits from the cash invested from the destruction of the forest to provide artificial substitutes for ecosystem services is also stupid. We're not even sure of all the ecosystem service we gain from nature let alone how to replicate them.
The only solution is government legislation providing total protection for the ecosystem services nature provides humanity but considering we live in a capitalist society and the corporate economic subsystem is showing clear signs of sub-optimization of societies entire hierarchy from top (political) to bottom (brainwashing your kids through TV advertising) I wouldn't hold my breath for any political solution.
The hubris is shocking!