Jimmy Li
< Pavan Sukhdev: What’s the price of nature> In this video, Pavan Sukhdev mainly discussed what is our cost of nature, what will the consequences be, and how can we repay the cost. He talked about a project called TEEB which is a project that calculate natural cost. He gave a lot of examples to help us understand. Amazon’s rainforest is the first example. The amount of precipitation that amazon rainforest generate is one great resource of Brazil’s economy. Pollination from bees is an important natural asset for the growth of economy too. However, the nature will not ask us to pay for these resources. And the ones depend most on the nature is not upper class, but the poorest. They depend on the ecosystem the most. They are the group that gets less attention and get hurt the most. Species abundance has dramatically decreased since the beginning of industrial revolution. The only places that remain the same are desserts which do not have many species in the first place. There is another example for Thailand. People cut down mangrove trees to farm shrimp. Although the private profit from the mangroves trees is much less than the private profit gained from shrimp farm, public profit of mangrove trees is huge. These trees can provide storm protection, cyclone protection, and in term of fisheries, the fish nurseries. The public cost of restoring the shrimp farm back to mangrove forest after 5 years is even huger. How do we solve this problem? Pavan proposed the idea of recognizing natural capital. Including the natural capital, the biggest asset of the country, into calculation of GDP and including the impact on nature when we measure companies’ performances are what we can do to realize the idea. He also said that we need to create a green carbon market which is to protect all natural assets which are carbon storage in terrestrial ecosystems. To support this idea, he mentioned China which has economy grown rapidly. The cost in China of deforestation is almost twice price as much as those timbers sold in market. The global warming issue caused by increasing carbon in the atmosphere is already very severe. Although it is already a little late to solve this issue, we can still save a lot from doing the right thing.
<William McDonough: cradle to cradle design> William McDonough asked a lot of questions about what we should design and there was a question that he asked: How do we love all the children of all species for all time? We need not only our kids, but also all children from all species. But how should we prevent our waste from poisoning our nature? We are facing a strategy of tragedy which will lead to an end game. William thinks that we have no such plan of protecting all species. Therefore there will be a lot of consequences to that. He thinks we need to have the strategy of hope which will not bring us to an end game, but an infinite game. In the report he wrote to the White House, he said “ our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power- economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.” He concluded all essential things we need for surviving. He is involved in a plan of building 12 new cities in China which moves faming to the top and activities to the ground. The plan is very idea, and I am looking forward to witnessing the results.
<Tim Jackson: An economic reality check> In the beginning of the video, Tim mentioned the word “prosperity”. The word “hope” in Latin is “speras” which is the root of “prosperity”. He said that we are eliminating hope by deforesting, increasing global warming, and leaking oil into Gulf of Mexico. Human beings are
