Saturday, April 9, 2016


Natural Capital

Nature provides countless services for free, such as water filtration and carbon storage. We call these services natural capital, or ecosystem services. We evaluate and describe these services, and calculate the economic cost if we had to provide them ourselves. When our leaders recognize the monetary and intrinsic value of natural capital, they will choose policies that protect and restore it.
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/issues/wildlife-habitat/projects/natural-capital/
David Suzuki's concept addresses nature's unpaid labor in a manner similar to Moore; albeit it differs  by presenting this unpaid labor in terms of economic value--capital; This is a strategic approach (and I argue a necessary one) that seeks public and economic leaders (but also the general public) to recognize the "monetary and intrinsic value" and choose to protect it.

I say this strategy is necessary because economic value is a form of convened valuation, one easier to agree with (and be tangibly affected by) than non-tangible ideological valuation or personal subjective appeals; however, it is also problematic in that it is limited to what is economically accountable and hence may fail to capture unknown or undervalued aspects. Furthermore, as Moore mentions (19, II) economic value is itself highly ideological; in this case the Suzuki Foundation offering a shift within the pragmatic ideologies of capital.

Moreover, such pragmatism and tangibility point that if Suzuki's approach works because it has the science and economic impact studies to back up the foundation's claims; in other words something unknown cannot be valued but also, science allows for this value to be known (it is a double-edge sword).

2 comments:

  1. Thank you Oslave! It is sad indeed that we've come to this. But I see his point and recognize the need as well...

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  2. Thanks for commenting. Well, it can be seen as translating one ideology into another, one value into another, working along the pragmatism of environment into the pragmatism of economy.

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