While we all stare at the financial crisis, while governments rush to embrace socialist philosophies to prop up the banks, while Bush slides another $2.5bn as a soft loan to the car manufacturers to prop them up at least until November, there's another, greater crisis looming,
It won't change the election, but will impact us all soon.
George Monbiot has described it in the UK Guardian. ,
On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year, as a result of deforestation alone(1). The losses incurred so far by the financial sector amount to between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Sukhdev arrived at his figure by estimating the value of the services - such as locking up carbon and providing freshwater - that forests perform, and calculating the cost of either replacing them or living without them. The credit crunch is petty when compared to the nature crunch.
more below the fold
Read More