Re: ECON: Worth of the Earth

Dan Hook (guldann@ix.netcom.com)
Thu, 5 Jun 1997 10:42:43 -0400

If nanotechnology is as close as it (sometimes, Damien's post) appears to
be, I think that the possibility of replacing the ecosystem is not "too
remote and unlikely to be of much current interest."
Anyway, I read something on this and it seems they have the right idea for
now. Instead of building a water treatment plant, New York bought a
watershed, for presumably less than the five billion it would have cost for
the treatment plant.

Dan Hook
guldann@ix.netcom.com
----------
> From: Mitchell Porter <mitch@thehub.com.au>
>
> "Although it is possible to imagine generating
> human welfare without natural capital and ecosystem
> services in 'space colonies', this possibility is
> too remote and unlikely to be of much current
> interest. In fact, one additional way to think
> about the value of ecosystem services is to
> dteermine what it would cost to replicate them
> in a technologically produced, artificial
> biosphere. Experience with manned space
> missions and with Biosphere II in Arizona
> indicates that this is an exceedingly
> complex and expensive proposition. Biosphere I
> (the Earth) is a very effective, least-cost
> provider of human life-support services."
>
> No figures are provided in support of these
> claims about space-colony economics.