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Forget the FTSE or DOW, we need a rainforest index
Posted by: Alistair Macdonald
I read on the BBC today about the first phase of a reporting initiative out today (TEEB) that estimates the economic impact of deforestation. The results tower way above the current financial market falls with annual losses weighing in at $2-5 trillion a year!! These costs have been worked out by looking at the value, in economic terms, that rainforests provide with particular respect to providing clean water and carbon dioxide sinks. The beeb put these findings alongside the Stern report as examples of the true cost of laissez faire.
Never has there been a more pressing time to look at the things in our world that have REAL value and that we can never replace. The ongoing concerted effort by the world's great governments and central banks in shoring up the financial system is unparallelled, this is proof that we can do it if we try.
Read about the EU commissioned program TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) here.
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I agree Laurie - and I was just thinking yesterday about the vast tracts of column inches and broadcast time dedicated to 'the credit crunch'...lack of liquidity in the financial system, drawing on diminished capital, borrowing against depreciating assets etc etc and mulling on the fact that we are, and have been for some time, right in the thick of the 'ecology crunch'...where we're happily chomping our way through the planet's ecological capital at rates faster than they can be replenished, borrowing off our kids etc...yet we don't seem to be seeing quite the same level of coverage! Who are the 'Masters of the Universe' for the natural world, that, like the wunch of bankers who got us into this fiscal mess, might be held responsible? Well collectively it's all of us...but politically it's the very same folk who are now trumpeting their skill in rescuing us from what the French call 'le Crunch'. How about turning your talents to the other crunch boys and girls? I promise to be more grateful and humble than the city types currently having their arses saved!