The time has come to put an accurate value on natural capital in economic terms. For some time now, we’ve failed to attribute the full cost of our production and consumption systems. In simple terms, we’ve been cheating ourselves. At the same time that we’ve increased GDP, which is essentially the only aggregate measure of economic progress that we have, we’ve also degraded land, polluted air, destroyed water-supply catchments, cut down rainforests, and contributed to the melting of polar ice sheets. We must reverse that relationship by recognizing that the global economy is, in fact, a
...more
