Chapter
2 (Part 4) - Can we replicate nature's services?
Whenever
the economy has faced factors limiting development
in the past, industrial nations sought to optimize
the productivity and increase the supply of the
limiting factor. In the past, economic development
has periodically faced one or more limiting factors,
including the availability of workers, energy resources
and financial capital. Engineers and scientists
found new energy sources and created new enabling
technologies that helped make global transportation
and communication possible. Financial capital became
universally available through central banks, credit,
stock exchanges and currency exchange mechanisms.
Human ingenuity has accomplished remarkable things
over the last 300 years. But can we really hope
to find substitutes for all natural ecosystem services?
The complexity and diversity of natural ecosystems
is very hard to replace. Nobel laureate, and world
famous physicist, Richard Feynman once said that
attempting to understand nature is like trying to
learn how to play chess by watching a game while
being able to see only two squares at a time. The
ecosystem services listed below that nature provides
for free are not cost effectively replaceable or
substitutable by technological innovation. These
services complement and are depended on by life
on our planet.
Ecosystem services include (adapted from Natural
Capitalism):
• production of atmospheric gases;
• supporting evolutionary processes, and biodiversity;
• purification of soil, water and air;
• storage and cycling of fresh water and nutrients;
• regulation of the chemistry of the atmosphere
and oceans;
• maintenance of habitats for wildlife;
• disposing of organic wastes;
• sequestration and treatment of waste;
• pest and disease control by insects, birds
and other organisms;
• production of the variety of species for
food, fibres, pharmaceuticals and materials;
• conversion of solar energy into natural
materials;
• prevention of soil erosion and sediment
loss;
• alleviating floods and managing runoff;
• protection against UV radiation;
• regulation of the local and global climate;
• development of topsoil and maintenance of
soil fertility;
• production of grasslands, fertilizers and
food.