Biodiversity Has Economic Benefits

There is a bumper sticker many of you have probably seen – Extinction is forever. It addresses a very real problem that is directly related to ecosystems and their destruction.

Global warming skeptics and proponents of the use of fossil fuels – themselves fossils – often discuss the cost to switch to renewable energy sources. Yes it will cost to switch and their will be job losses, although there should also be job creation, but these proponents never seem to consider the economic factors having to do with the destruction of the planet.

If the world we live in is a gift from the almighty and the resources provided are limited, the destruction of any living specie is a tragedy of monumental proportion. Not only does each individual specie support the ecosystem it is a part of, losing the hereditary germ deprives future generations of the necessary antidote to who knows what disease. Morally speaking this can not be right, but morality aside, this is just plain foolhardy.

It costs to build solar paneling or wind turbines just as it costs to pump oil, dig coal and harvest a rain forest, but over harvesting a rain forest will cause it to burn down whereas a healthy rain forest will not burn down. As one of nature’s pharmacies is destroyed this becomes catastrophic from a purely economic point of view.

Tagged as: Ecosystem, renewable energy, Wind turbine