Environmental Economics

Scary stories abound in environmental circles. For instance, did you know apparently the hormones in birth control pills entering the water cycle through human urine are modifying the mating abilities of fish? Or that genetically modified canola plants that have been altered to avoid being killed by pesticides are proving immortal, and threaten to choke out all other crops on the prairies? Have you considered mad cow disease as the ultimate argument for vegetarianism? After all, if all cows were vegetarian, they would never have contracted this dread disease in the first place. If all humans were vegetarian they would be permanently and absolutely protected from it.
Even if these horror stories are exaggerated, which they likely are, the fact remains that this Earth is being damaged by human beings. You can see the evidence for yourself on any clear day in Vancouver. Head over the Arthur Laing or Alex Fraser bridges for a view to the East that will cause you to choke just by looking at it. Try going fishing to one of the lakes in the interior of British Columbia: a mere thirty years ago they were teaming with healthy fish, today you are lucky to catch one.
However, money holds all the cards in our world. Despite evidence to the contrary, governments refuse to give incentives for non-polluting industries, or disincentives to polluters. Governments refuse to sign agreements such as the Kyoto accord which would at least monitor the amounts of emissions. If we accept the fact that the Earth is really all we have, and without it human beings become as extinct as the dinosaurs, surely wisdom must suggest working hard to try and maintain the planet’s liveability.
Can you envision a world where financial gain is not the ultimate goal? A world where ecological gain becomes the pre-eminent goal of all people? Perhaps the only way to achieve such a pipe dream is to equate ecological gain with profits and ecological damage with losses. The particulars would need to be worked out, however the necessity is resolute.
In the spirit of self-preservation, we would be wise to assume that wilderness is important in and of itself, just in case it is. In the possibility that wilderness does have intrinsic value, we humans would be best to treat it, and preserve it, so that it is there for seven future generations, as was the belief among Native American populations. Native viewpoints from time immemorial have imbued humans with the responsibility to maintain the balance and health of the natural world as a solemn spiritual duty that an individual must perform daily—not simply as admirable, abstract, ethical imperatives that can be ignored as one chooses. This spiritual duty is present because Native Americans believe that the spirit of life exists in all of nature, not just in human beings.
As we have proven over the past century, even when clear evidence exists about damage to the earth and the depletion of non-renewable resources, we continue to damage the earth in some sort of naïve hope that the earth will take care of itself. As Rachel Carson suggests in Silent Spring, given centuries, the earth probably could adapt; given the rapid pace of technological advances producing new and more harmful chemicals and technologies, the earth has no hope of keeping up.
Whether or not it can be proven, or merely just believed as I do, that wilderness has it’s own intrinsic value,
humans would be wise to adopt an ecological ethic that protects wilderness from human devastation so that the
earth remains a place that sustains life in all of its various and glorious forms.