Honorable Forum: It is further heartening and exciting to see ESA taking the lead on such issues, and judging from the very high quality of their last one, I trust that the project is in good and deliberate hands. That should not, however, prevent this list from providing grist for the ESA mill. I hope a significant percentage of the >6,000 members of this list will post specific ideas in this regard; a flood of enthusiasm, discussion, winnowing, and technical evaluation, while perhaps a bit time-consuming, might help to knock another one out of the park!
I hope also that there will be some new ideas beyond the usual "ecological services" concept and some real intellectual COURAGE shown--enough to maybe make the evening news! I hope that some dramatic comparisons will be made that incorporate starkly contrasting value issues paired with the quantitative ones (which are often difficult to justify in quantitative terms--that's precisely why value examples are so important). I did try, for example, to work an example of value contrasted with price into both of my Op-Ed pieces about the California condor in the 1980's (New York Times, 1986 Feb 08 and San Francisco Chronicle, 1986 Jan 16), but limited space prevented its retention in the published articles (I may have worked it in somewhere else, but I can't remember where or when). I recall trying to make the point that the entire condor recovery program cost was less that even a single fighter plane (how could any sane society value any species, much less such a spectacularly "charismatic" one as the California condor, at less than one expendable vehicle of death among many "squanderons" of them?). I think I even tried to appeal to fellow aviators to pony up a few bucks to help a magnificent real bird, but that, admittedly, was a bit of a stretch. Even though this may not be a good example of value/price contrasting, I hold out hope that the example gives someone a better idea of how to express the principle in current-day terms. I look forward to a whole flock of ideas that will lead to a knockout of a statement that will set off a firestorm of public interest in the fact so obvious to ecologists that they sometimes forget to mention it--that it is no coincidence that economics and ecology share the same root. We are all in this "house," this earth, together, and all acts have consequences--and true progress must be defined as weighing them all in advance of action. Enthusiastically y'all's, WT "Americans know the price of everything, but the value of nothing." --An unattributed "modification" of Oscar Wilde's original quote, who described cynics in those terms. At 06:01 AM 1/17/2008, Nadine Lymn wrote: >Dear Ecologers, > >There have been several postings over the last months urging the >Ecological Society of America to consider issuing a position statement >on economic growth. In addition, a group of ecologists submitted a >request to the Governing Board in August, followed by additional letters >of interest supporting such a statement. =20 > >The ESA Governing Board is taking this interest seriously and has asked >the Society's Public Affairs Committee to oversee the development of a >position statement for its consideration and review.=20 > >This process is underway and there will be an opportunity for interested >members to offer feedback to the proposed statement. In addition, the >Public Affairs Office has been collecting the many letters that have >already come in offering views on this topic. > >As with all the Society's position statements, ESA takes very seriously >the task of producing documents that are carefully reviewed and >appropriately reflect the underlying science and the Ecological Society >of America. We will notify this list when a draft is available for >comment and appreciate the interest in this topic. > >Nadine Lymn >ESA Director of Public Affairs
