As always, a truly insightful post. I would argue, however, that the psychological dimension deserves consideration as well. There is well-established evidence that nature has a profoundly positive impact on mental health. A growing number of people requiring psychiatric care, combined with a shrinking workforce due to mental health conditions, carries significant economic consequences. Furthermore, people are consistently willing to pay a premium for housing near thriving, healthy ecosystems. Once those ecosystems are lost, so too is that value.
Somewhat agreed—the psychological dimension is large across the whole world. I sort of gestured at it in my first post about the revealed preference for nature. Maybe I should have tried to estimate the combined value of premium housing near healthy ecosystems. (Hm, it would be conflated with “ocean views” and other aesthetic physical landscapes, and some of the value comes from being a positional good....)
The typical scientific justification in the vein of psychological value mostly comes down to “greenery” which could be equally provided by unnatural and low biodiversity park walks. There are some other examples like birdsong, but it’s still not evidence that biodiversity is important for our wellbeing. I admit I did a cursory check, but I feel pretty confident that it’s not good justification for the sort of global biodiversity conservation that environmentalists (like myself) value.
As always, a truly insightful post. I would argue, however, that the psychological dimension deserves consideration as well. There is well-established evidence that nature has a profoundly positive impact on mental health. A growing number of people requiring psychiatric care, combined with a shrinking workforce due to mental health conditions, carries significant economic consequences. Furthermore, people are consistently willing to pay a premium for housing near thriving, healthy ecosystems. Once those ecosystems are lost, so too is that value.
Somewhat agreed—the psychological dimension is large across the whole world. I sort of gestured at it in my first post about the revealed preference for nature. Maybe I should have tried to estimate the combined value of premium housing near healthy ecosystems. (Hm, it would be conflated with “ocean views” and other aesthetic physical landscapes, and some of the value comes from being a positional good....)
The typical scientific justification in the vein of psychological value mostly comes down to “greenery” which could be equally provided by unnatural and low biodiversity park walks. There are some other examples like birdsong, but it’s still not evidence that biodiversity is important for our wellbeing. I admit I did a cursory check, but I feel pretty confident that it’s not good justification for the sort of global biodiversity conservation that environmentalists (like myself) value.