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Ecological Economy
A new breed of ecological economists is pioneering the idea that unless
the natural services provided by ecosystems can be assigned some price
that reflects their economic value, there will be no practical way to
save them for future generations. Their objective is to create
self-sustained markets for “environmental capital.”
“We are not talking business as usual here,” Jane Lubchenco,
president of the AAAS, told her fellow researchers at the February
conference in Seattle. “The changes occurring now are so much more
rapid, so different in scale and in kind that the past offers little
insight into likely responses.” She issued an urgent call to the world’s
scientists to give the same expertise and energy to the environment as
they have spent on arms, medicine and the space race.
 The lively sea otter, hunted almost to extinction, is a keystone
species
In recent articles in the journal Science, Daily chronicles
how close we are to running out of tillable soil and fresh water. She
says the impact is felt today in lands where women and children spend
their days walking to collect water and fuelwood for the family. Such
conditions trigger wars and mass migrations in developing nations like
Rwanda, just as air pollution generates tensions between developed
countries like Germany and Sweden.
Last year, then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher acknowledged that
link between ecology and global security in a major policy address at
Stanford. He declared that environmental concerns, like human rights,
are a foreign policy priority.
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