Dasgupta’s work is very valuable and the approach in his paper that you linked is potentially powerful because they might give policy makers a way to create new adequate policies and allocate budgets and manpower. I believe his core point to be spot on, namely that nature provides very valuable services which are not properly factored in by modern economics. However, as a first issue, it runs against certain other beliefs which are strong and widespread among self-identified EAs like a general support of “growth” (often without distinction which kind of growth would be beneficial or desirable). Second, the fact that there are no proper models for this yet means that quantification of these services isn’t readily available and cannot be quickly performed. This makes prioritization of interventions and resource allocation difficult because output effectiveness cannot be measured.
This “modelling gap” could be a good candidate for some research efforts that several EA-aligned organizations and people might have the necessary skills for. Good research questions could be, for example, how to properly model the value of “nature”, ecosystems, ecosystem services, biodiversity (which ensures ecosystem resilience) and anything these provide to humanity. Another good idea would be, instead of coming up with a good methodology or model, to attempt to do this for certain kinds of resources or ecosystem services as an example. For example, the Amazon powers the South American water cycle—how much is that worth to South America or the planet as a whole? Which “relative value” do certain species that are important for forest health and recovery play? What value does biodiversity have as a whole in ensuring these systems’ health and where are “tipping points” that damage the whole system, thus degrading services (and quantifying the level of degradation)? There are many questions one could think of that would warrant inquiry.
I personally think that assigning more priority to biodiversity and ecosystems is very important. As Dasgupta states, ecosystems provide crucial services to humanity (and the planet) as a whole and we are not factoring these in in a suitable way and thus not assigning the required resources for protecting these crucial services. Biodiversity reduction decreases ecosystems’ resilience and at the same time leads to other risks such as zoonoses. There are also inherent dangers in extinctions because extinct species are currently almost possible to be brought back to life. Fully destroyed ecosystems are much more expensive to restore than “just” maintaining existing ones. The topic is generally a bit neglected in EA unfortunately and, in my personal opinion, deserves much more attention.
Dasgupta’s work is very valuable and the approach in his paper that you linked is potentially powerful because they might give policy makers a way to create new adequate policies and allocate budgets and manpower. I believe his core point to be spot on, namely that nature provides very valuable services which are not properly factored in by modern economics. However, as a first issue, it runs against certain other beliefs which are strong and widespread among self-identified EAs like a general support of “growth” (often without distinction which kind of growth would be beneficial or desirable). Second, the fact that there are no proper models for this yet means that quantification of these services isn’t readily available and cannot be quickly performed. This makes prioritization of interventions and resource allocation difficult because output effectiveness cannot be measured.
This “modelling gap” could be a good candidate for some research efforts that several EA-aligned organizations and people might have the necessary skills for. Good research questions could be, for example, how to properly model the value of “nature”, ecosystems, ecosystem services, biodiversity (which ensures ecosystem resilience) and anything these provide to humanity. Another good idea would be, instead of coming up with a good methodology or model, to attempt to do this for certain kinds of resources or ecosystem services as an example. For example, the Amazon powers the South American water cycle—how much is that worth to South America or the planet as a whole? Which “relative value” do certain species that are important for forest health and recovery play? What value does biodiversity have as a whole in ensuring these systems’ health and where are “tipping points” that damage the whole system, thus degrading services (and quantifying the level of degradation)? There are many questions one could think of that would warrant inquiry.
I personally think that assigning more priority to biodiversity and ecosystems is very important. As Dasgupta states, ecosystems provide crucial services to humanity (and the planet) as a whole and we are not factoring these in in a suitable way and thus not assigning the required resources for protecting these crucial services. Biodiversity reduction decreases ecosystems’ resilience and at the same time leads to other risks such as zoonoses. There are also inherent dangers in extinctions because extinct species are currently almost possible to be brought back to life. Fully destroyed ecosystems are much more expensive to restore than “just” maintaining existing ones. The topic is generally a bit neglected in EA unfortunately and, in my personal opinion, deserves much more attention.
Edit: A term for an economics that does take current and future externalities into account is “Full-cost economics/accounting” or “True-cost economics/accounting”.