The Economist who wants the field to account for nature

Title should be: Meet the economist who...

Note missing first word and corrected capitalisation since this is unrelated to The Economist!)l

If economics took externalities into account then our entire economic order would break down. Thus, it won't happen...until eventually the whole thing stops working.

The environment has always been an element of economics, whether we like it or not.

Classical liberalism arose during one of the most enduring and powerful colonial exercises ever seen on the planet. So yes, indeed, a hole dug in the earth has more value than the earth itself, in that context. In a closed system, it boils out a little different, as we've been aware since at least the days of Malthus and Mill.

Granted, it's quite a bit harder to get that coveted "Highest Paid Professorship in Academia" when you're doing ecological economics, but money doesn't make something true. Counterpoint: there is a lot of money there to be made here, because things like drinking water and air have effectively infinite prices. Imagine saving the world . . then charging everyone rent. The "space parasol" versus global warming could even make this a reality for some deep-pocketed bastards.

I get so very, very tired of birdsie-woodsie environmentalists, when the hard-ass utilitarian arguments are so frickin' obvious . .

> The organization’s open-source software model, called InVEST, combines data gleaned from thousands of researchers working with techniques such as satellite imaging, soil surveys, climate modeling, and human development mapping to quantify and place a value on natural resources.

Here: https://naturalcapitalproject.stanford.edu/software/invest

“We can never capture the total value of a forest in terms of cultural and spiritual values or even biodiversity, but we can say that it has measurable economic values across dimensions that have not been considered before.”

So, in extreme summary, "the government has been selling the land for too cheap for too long."

> Gretchen Daily is working to make the environment more of an element in economic decision-making.

This is complete nonsense. There are a ton of environmental economists. It’s an active and vigorous field. There are “environmental and X” people for many other economics subfields, e.g., macro, development, structural, etc. There are a ton of people doing work on climate related topics.

By contrast I have never heard of this person. She’s not the first or the only or even an influential figure in the area of environmental economics.

Don’t assume the field doesn’t care about the environment just bc one article says so.

Ecological Economics has been around since the '80s...