Comments on: Expanding your Mind: Dealing with the Uncertainty of the Future

By: supernova

supernova — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:39:45 +0000

I don’t know if Dr Carpenter has a valuing method for the ecosystem, but i understand that we usually use Costenza values for ecosystems. Ecosystem like marshes have the highess value per square foot du to the tremondous amont of services they provide (Carbone sink, erosion prevention, biodiversity issues and water quality). Other have moderate values like forest, savannahs. Desert and Oceans have low value. Ocean make up that low value with their rather impressive superficy. Those cost are afterward use in cost-benefit analysis where the changed ecosystem’S value is compared with the natural one. If you are interested in those issues, i would recommend those articles :

«Economic Reasons for Conserving Wild Nature» by
Andrew Balmford, Aaron Bruner, Philip Cooper, Robert Costanza, Stephen Farber, Rhys E. Green, Martin Jenkins, Paul Jefferiss, Valma Jessamy, Joah Madden, Kat Munro, Norman Myers, Shahid Naeem, Jouni Paavola,
Matthew Rayment, Sergio Rosendo, Joan Roughgarden, Kate Trumper and R. Kerry Turner

and

«The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital» by
Robert Costanza, Ralph d’Arge, Rudolf the Groot, Stephen Farber, Monica Grasso, Bruce Hannon, Karin Limburg, Shahid Naeem, Robert V. O’Neill, Jose Paruelo, Robert G. Raskin, Paul Sutton and Marjan ven den Belt

By: guesswho

guesswho — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:18:39 +0000

Sorry that my comment is not related to your post, but to the article you sent us. I was wondering if Dr. Carpenter explained how resilience capacity of an ecosystem can be measured or valued. And what about ecosystem productivity ? Is it possible to compare the productivity in the desert with the productivity in a marine ecosystem ?

By: patagonia

patagonia — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:30:47 +0000

I think you make a very good point about the importance of managing for damages in the face of environmental deterioration. However, I am not sure that I agree on your stance about; yes it is important to build resiliancy of the environment but not to prevent damages from occuring. I think these two points are one in the same. Humans can not build resiliancy or the ecological functions and services of the environment. The best we can do is prevent an extent of environmental damage that would halt these services. Prevention would entail conserving water resources, changing to efficient green energy, reduction in the world population and a many other factors which all amount to preventing damages to the environment. For me, there is sufficient evidence that increased climate change will have a net negative impact on the environment and on all living things on earth; so while I believe that planning for damage control is crucial to lessen the consequences of climate change and environmental deterioration (i.e. building storm walls to prevent flooding in cases like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans), it is not enough. The entire world must start acting to prevent and reverse environmental damages, because at a certain point, damage control will not be enough.

By: guesswho

guesswho — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:28:08 +0000

I also thought that this seminar was really refreshing. Just the fact that Carpenter suggests imagination as being a good manner to avoid an environmental collapse seemed really interesting. It did contrast with the traditional pessimist feeling that usually emerge from the “we are facing an enormous problem, there is not a lot that can be possibly done” tone. I really felt that Carpenter wanted to give us the strength and the tools to face those problems and perhaps that is why we preferred this seminar over the others we did attempt to this semester.