Musings, Explorations, and Announcements

I've been reading the latest report from The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study,  which was released this week at the meeting for the Convention for Biological Diversity.  I've been skeptical as to the utility of the project, which was billed as a "Stern Report for Biodiversity" when it was begun three years ago.  Nicholas Stern's report on the economic impact of climate change could be reduced to a few numbers - the cost of mitigation, and the cost of action, tons of carbon released and its concentration in the atmosphere.

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There's an article in the Times today about risks that utilities face due to water shortages.  The story is based on a new report from Ceres and PricewaterhouseCoopers which claims that bond ratings agencies haven't adequately incorporated these risks into their ratings, causing an over-valuation of bonds issued by cities and public utilities.   Ceres and PwC base their analyses on future projections of water supply and demand, which in turn are predicted from demographic and climate predictions.

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Reading Lawrence Hinman's "Ethics, a Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory," I came across this quote in a discussion of valuing utility to future generations:

...they do not yet exist - and, depending on our actions, they may never exist.

I stared at this for a long time.

There's been a whole lot of interesting stuff coming out this week related the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) going on in Nagoya, Japan right now.   CBD's goal was to slow the loss of biodiversity loss by 2010, but that goal was not achieved, and nations are hammering out how to revive the CBD with new goals for 2020. At a prepatory meeting in May, governments agreed on 20 more specific draft targets, which aim to be “SMART” - specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, and time-bound.

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  Last week the Journal of Applied Ecology had an article titled, "How can ecologists help realize the potential of payments for carbon in tropical forest countries?" It outlined ways that ecologists could make themselves useful in Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).  The article was aimed at ecologists, but I'm going to give the authors' insights a different twist.  In the interest of the welfare of my colleagues, I'd like to point out to the carbon community that ecological expertise is worth some money.

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