October 14, 2006:
The tools for the destruction of nature’s services have been delivered to the site that the Memphis City Council approved for a new residential housing development in Raleigh. In fact, a few hours after this photo was taken, the bulldozers sallied forth on their missions.
What does the term, “nature’s services” mean? In Wikipedia, the term is defined as :
Nature's services is an umbrella term for the ways in which nature benefits humans, particularly those benefits that can be measured in economic terms. Robert Costanza and other theorists of natural capital conducted extensive economic analyses of nature’s services to humanity in the 1990’s.
Go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature for further reading on the subject of Nature’s Services.
One service that is overlooked on Wikipedia is the service the trees and understory plants provide. That is, providing the “breath of life”…oxygen, to humanity. Of course, humanity is steadily increasing the carbon dioxide levels of the atmosphere through the increased burning of fossil fuels. As many readers know, carbon dioxide is absorbed by green plants and in the process of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is converted into food for the plants, and release oxygen to the air. A free trade that those interested in short term profits, such as the developers of this residential project, and the approvers of said project seem clueless to grasp in their minds as they bulldoze humanity's life support system to the ground.
More on Ecosystem Services:
http://esa.org/teaching_learning/pdfDocs/ecosystemservices.pdf
