Nature-al Resources
By Anthony Barnosky / On April 20th, 2009
What comes to mind when you hear the words "natural resources?" Oil. Water. Nature.
Nature? In fact, yes, nature is one of the big ones. Ecologists and economists have a name for the natural resources that nature provides: "ecosystem services." They've calculated that globally the dollar-value of those services could be $54 trillion annually in 1997 dollars--for comparison the Gross World Product for 2008 was around $62 trillion.