ENVI3111 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Environmental Economics, Ecosystem Services, Contingent Valuation

• School: University of Sydney
• Department: Environmental Science
• Course: ENVI3111
• Professor: Josephine Gillespie

Document Summary

Or do, ecosystems have value independent of humans? https://www. nature. com/scitable/knowledge/library/valuing- ecosystems-71373110. Aggregating elements of value: the value of whole systems = the sum of the values of their parts. Despite the dominance of aggregative approaches, no unified approach to valuing ecosystems have emerged: because practitioners of different disciplines aggregate very different units of value. Criticised for introducing monetised measures that are not based on the methodologies of mainstream economics, creating ambiguity in the measures used. What morally demands protection in ecosystems is not value instrumental to human wel-being, but values intrinsic to nature itself: elements of nature have intrinsic values and that these values often trump values instrumental to humans. The poor performance of monists in evaluating change, and the intellectual dilemmas created by the interaction of economists and ethicists have led to a number of environmental theorists to explore moral pluralism. Does not offer a single best answer, but seeks a fair and reasonable balance among competing values.