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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (33536)	3/30/1999 12:28:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

>He contended (in the argot typical of economists) that extinction of valuable animals and plants would not occur because it was not in the entrepreneurs interest.< Oh my! Oh yes! I am continually reminded of the example of Easter Island. It was largely wooded when the first islanders colonized. They brought stone axes and goats. The combination was the stuff of environmental catastrophe. As the woodland shrank, the value of each tree went up. But seen entrepreneurially - the value of each tree cut down went up! When that last tree was standing - its assessed value as firewood exceeded its projected value as the last hope for more wood sometime later. The Easter Islanders ruined their island and died out without assistance from Westerners. Our market economy does a lousy job of valuating slowly renewable resources.

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (33536)	3/31/1999 6:51:00 AM
From: nihil	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<<Why is it ... that we insist on measuring the worth of all things in dollars.>> Chuz, you really ought to debate these things with a smarter economist. The reason we insist on measuring worth in dollars because Congress has made it legal tender. Do you realize that when the Corps of Engineers or any public environmental agency evaluates a project that it must do benefit-cost analysis in dollars -- the net present value of future cash (and benefit flows) and it must be positive to get the project funded. Look in the reports and you will see how much the Corps' experts think a stand of trees being flooded by a dam are worth. You are welcome to comment on the report, and question the estimate of how many dollars of pleasures hikers, dog walkers (not the dogs), passers by and others will enjoy. It is all there. Any impulse in a vernal wood is now evaluated by environment economists (we murder to dissect). I believe that by attaching dollar values to everything anybody likes we can help preserve those things. The government built a little dam to protect a pupfish and another for a stickleback. Had the dams' costs made the net benefit of the bigger projects negative they would have been stopped. This kind of benefit-cost analysis has almost put the Corps out of business and permitted preservation of many resources undeveloped. Sometimes to save things they like, individuals will have to shell out themselves. Okay when it is Rockefellers who want to preserve the Smoky Mountains Park or Jackson Hole. People need to follow this idea. The local, national, and international nature conservancies need our help.