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Welcome to World Ocean Radio…
I’m Peter Neill, Director of the World Ocean Observatory.
The execution of a new plan and new paradigm for Nature, specifically the coast and ocean, lies at the heart of transformational change. Under the now depleted valuation system, natural resources, such as coal, oil, gas, and gold, were monetized and measured as the fossil-fueling of gross national product, stocks and market prices, and exchange of goods and services. The rules were clear; what was left in the calculation served the system, what was left out was external to the extent of infinite exclusion. It worked fine, if you were placed within; it did not work well, or at all, if you were placed without – and so was perpetuated a force for good, and evil, that provided a convenient rationale for the insiders, and no rational, no reasonable expectation for those outside.
The premise was that natural resources were infinite; that consequential by-products and impacts on humans and their communities were incidental to progress, a greater good, a continuous celebration of life through consumption, a system that was indifferent to the evident exhaustion of those resources, the acidification and poisoning of the atmosphere and waterways, the collapse of communal norms, and the divisive rise of class differentiation, racism, inequity, and injustice. These were the externalities, and they were deliberately not included in the cost/benefit analyses then, and, still, even now.
Every drop of oil or coal burnt had a depletion consequence, mostly ignored in the short term, denied in the long. Only recently has it become obvious that those resources were always finite, and that the value lost by their consumption was further amplified by the cost of consequence: despoiled fields, forgotten communities, insidious disease, conflict justified by replacement need. Only recently has it become obvious that we need a new system of valuation of natural assets that reflects the true cost of good and services, demands new responsive structures and behaviors, and incorporates those externalities as well as the reparation cost of damage already done.
An article in Nature in 1997, by Robert Costanza of the University of Maryland, and colleagues, begins a discussion of the definition and preliminary evaluation of ecosystem functions and services inclusive of habitat, biological and systemic properties and processes, food, water, and regulation and recycling of natural value as benefits that serve human populations now and, if sustained, for the future. The authors list seventeen: atmospheric and chemical regulation; climate regulation of temperature, precipitation, and other biologically mediated processes at local and global levels; disturbance as a result of environmental fluctuations; water and hydrological flows; retention of water; storage of water; retention of soil; soil formation; storage and internal cycling of nutrients; recovery of nutrients; pollination; predator control; habitat and refuge protection; food production; raw material extraction; genetic resources; recreation activities; and cultural uses. The value to be calculated must also contain the cost of reparation or replication, and the understanding that these resources must be sustained as infinite for the penultimate benefit of future human populations. Through various calculations, the paper estimated in 1997 dollars that ecosystem services provide at least US$ 33 trillion worth annually, 63% of which is contributed by ocean and coastal systems. This is national value; the global calculation was not made. This is real money, but it is not included at present in our costs, balance sheets, share prices, wages, and other forms of measurement of our economic condition and well-being. Consider inflation and decreased supply of resources in the intervening 26 years, and try to imagine what that value might be today, and, if included, how it would challenge our underlying values, skew our financial reports and estimates, devalue the continuity of our former ways, upset markets, and command our immediate attention for transformational change in the name of RESCUE: R for renewal; E for environment; S for society; U for understanding; and E for engagement.
We will discuss the issues, and more, in future editions of World Ocean Radio.
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