« Kurtz wades in | Main | Tag team back again »

March 31, 2005

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment project hit the news yesterday with a lot of fanfare. Scores of media outlets featured the report on the front pages and plenty of blogs got in on the act as well. It reports that up to 60 percent of the world's ecosystems are crumbling and much of it may be gone forever unless something is done. As a conservationist the report, if true, disturbs me. We didn't really need to be reminded that humans burden ecosystems, but the degree is striking.

What many outlets covering the report miss, though, is what the report recommends we do to solve the problem. In a rush to trumpet gloom and doom very few seem to have caught the most surprising part. The UN-based Millennium Ecosystem Assessment advocates a free market approach so that the demand of natural resources must account for the limited supply, something often avoided through subsidies. It also suggests that environmental degradation would be best reduced by more trade and more economic growth.

Specifically, the study notes that "Because many ecosystem services are not traded in markets, markets fail to provide appropriate signals that might otherwise contribute to the efficient allocation and sustainable use of the services." A market-based approach, similar to those advocated by many conservatives in the US, would be promising, but only if the "supporting institutions are in place." In other words, a responsible and effective government is still needed to ensure it's enforced.

Once those are established - and they are clearly in Europe, America, and most of Asia - a market for ecosystem services "can both increase the incentives for their conservation and increase the economic efficiency of their allocation if supporting legal and economic institutions are in place." 1,360 scientists from 95 nations have come together at the UN and advocated a market-based approach to limited resources. That's news indeed; why did the MSM choose not to cover it?

Others blogging the report: Connexions, the Urban Country, Jeremy D. Posadas, AlwaysRight.org, Stumbling and Mumbling, Crumb Trail, GOP Bloggers, and The Hypocritical Observer.

Update: Zach points to this post at Cafe Kayek declaring "science has already died."

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at March 31, 2005 07:42 AM

Comments