David Suzuki: What's the value of nature?

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      More than 13 percent of Canada’s gross domestic product depends on healthy ecosystems, according to Environment Canada briefing notes obtained by Postmedia News. By contrast, the Harper government’s pet economic project, the Alberta oil sands, represents a mere two percent. But is 13 percent a reasonable estimate of the “value” of nature? With the current perspective that elevates the economy above all else, it’s important to find ways to include nature’s value in our calculations so it doesn’t get ignored in decision-making. At the same time, it seems absurd to try to assign worth to something so vital we can’t survive without it.

      Most of the world’s people are now urban dwellers and spend increasingly less time outdoors. As such, we assume we can create our habitat. As long as we have parks to play in, we don’t think much about nature. So, let’s consider a thought exercise.

      Scientists invent a time machine to take us back four-billion years before life appeared. We strap ourselves in, press buttons and are transported to a time when the planet was sterile, devoid of life. We open the hatch and go out. And, we’re all dead! That’s because before life arose, the atmosphere was toxic for animals like usrich in CO2, ammonia, sulphur and water, but devoid of oxygen.

      Oxygen is a highly reactive element that is quickly used up when elements like sulphur and iron oxidize. Only after life evolved a way to exploit the sun’s energy through photosynthesis was carbon dioxide removed and oxygen released as a byproduct. Over millions of years, photosynthesis liberated oxygen, which built up to become 20 percent of the atmosphere. To this day, all green things on land and in oceans maintain the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide.

      However, since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve been burning fossil fuels, liberating more carbon dioxide than life can absorb. It’s accumulating in the atmosphere and oceans, and that’s driving climate change.

      Back to our experiment. We knew about the toxic atmosphere before we started out and so we packed helmets and compressed air tanks, which we don before opening the hatch. We exit and wander about, looking at the eerie, barren landscape for an hour or two before becoming thirsty. There’s water, but what could we trust to drink? Life is part of the hydrologic cycle that circulates water around the world in rivers, lakes, oceans, and air. Soil organisms like fungi and bacteria, as well as plant roots, filter molecules from water to render it drinkable.

      We knew that, too, and so we have water bottles attached to our helmets, connected by straw to our mouths. After many more hours, we become hungry. But before there was life on Earth there was no food for animals like us because everything we eat was once alive! We consume the carcasses of animals and plants and absorb their molecules to form every part of our bodies.

      We also anticipated that and brought food. In fact, I expected to stay a while and brought seeds to grow greens. But where could I plant them? There would be dust, sand, clay and gravel, but no soil because it’s formed by the accumulation of molecules from the remains of plants and animals.

      Finally, the sun sets and although it’s warm because of greenhouse gases, we decide to build a fire so we can sit around and exchange stories. Where could we find fuel to burn? Wood, peat, dung, coal, oil and gas all store the sun’s energy as photosynthetic products that we burn to liberate fire. Before life, there was no fuel. Again, in anticipation we brought wood, kindling and paper and set them up for a fire. But fire requires oxygen, so nothing happens when we strike the match.

      The point of this exercise is to illustrate that the very foundations of our lives – air, water, photosynthesis, soil and food – are made possible by the web of life that evolved on a once-sterile planet. Living organisms on land and in oceansincluding uscreate, cleanse and regenerate those vital elements. Who needs nature? We do. Without nature, we would not be here. How do we put an economic value on that?

      Comments

      6 Comments

      anonymous

      Jul 24, 2013 at 8:34am

      Our economic system, like humans, are derived from the processes of ecology. We need to put an ecological value on our economy and an economic value on the ecology.

      Kathryn Papp

      Jul 24, 2013 at 8:44am

      Actually, it is estimated that the Great Oxygenation Event occurred 550million years ago. It was biologically-induced by photosynthesis, because oxygen atoms ran out of iron to attach to and was released into the atmosphere.

      Biological diversity is the Fourth Great Planetary system. The Hillis Plot shows our place within (not outside) this commonly shared platform.

      As we made a major paradigm shift when we removed the earth from the center of the solar system - we need to shift to putting humans within, not outside, the biological system. Just one more, recently added, organism - reliant on the irrational, creative, responsive system that is biology.

      Elizabeth

      Jul 24, 2013 at 9:38am

      Your story clearly showed the value of so many things we take for granted. I think everyone should read this to get a new appreciation for life as we know it.

      We can always count on you to show us the big picture.

      Do you value life

      Jul 24, 2013 at 12:00pm

      We are one with nature and with its demise we will follow and it goes deeper than that as we are one with the soil so shell we reap. To bee or not to bee has major ramifications.

      GOE

      Jul 24, 2013 at 6:27pm

      Elizabeth,

      Actually, the Great Oxygenation Event took place over 2 billion years ago. But still a good point that the production of waste oxygen by photosynthetic microbes overcame the natural ability of he ecosystem to absorb oxygen. This really shows us how evolution works as we wouldn't be around if ancient microbes hadn't polluted their environment. I wonder what the next stage in evolution will look like as we humans pollute the environment.

      Bonny Pilo

      Jul 29, 2013 at 9:07am

      After all the analysis at hand I am of the firm opinion that the worlds major problem stem from two homocentric actions: 1) Overconsumption by developed nations and 2) over population in under developed nations. The former depletes natural resources much more required and the latter depletes the natural resources out of necessity. Both not only reduces nature's biowealth but also releases pollutants. It is time that we curb both. Natures balance will be restored.