Final Question.

What is meant by the term "environmental overdraft?" How does it help to use economic terms when dealing with the environmental issues? Explain.

What is meant by the term “Environmental Overdraft?”

After doing a lot of research on this term I was unfortunately unable to find any search results for “Environmental Overdraft”. Due to this fact I researched the definition of Environment which I found to be the term very similar to Ecology.

Environment – A natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth.

Ecology – The science of the relationships between organisms and their environments.

Due to this fact I believe it is safe to say that the Environment Overdraft and the Ecological overdraft are more or less the same.

What is then meant by Environmental/ Ecological Overdraft?

The definition of Ecological Overdraft is the point at which human consumption exceeds the ability of earth to sustain it. As this world develops our needs increase as well.However the Earth can only produce so much within a year, so we are basically are creating a debt for ourselves by consuming more than what is produced. In 2007 the Ecological Debt was three days prior to what it was in 2006 which itself was three days earlier to what it had been in 2005. It is said by the NEF that ever since humans began living beyond their environmental capacity since the 1980’s the date has been moved steadily backwards annually. As I mentioned prior to this in my blog it is also said that if all the nations had the same consumption rates as the United States it would take 5.3 planets to support us. The Ecological Overdraft is nothing like the Tsunami or an Earthquake which will suddenly destroy this world, however it is a work in progress. A natural disaster will soon occur due to this but the only different between this and the “typical” natural disasters is the fact that we has humans are the people triggering it.

In order to gain a better understanding of what the term Environmental/Ecological Overdraft meant, I did some research on the Ecological Footprint. The Ecological Footprint is the measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems. It does this by comparing the human demands with the Earth’ ecological capacity to stimulate and regenerate. It also “represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste”. Using this we can estimate how many planets it would take to support humanity if everyone lived in a given lifestyle. The ecological footprint for 2006 has been estimated at 1.4 planets which means the Earth uses it’s resources 1.4 times faster than Earth can restore them. When this is all put into numbers it is quite shocking as to what we are doing to this Earth.

How does it help to use economic terms when dealing with environmental issues?

I believe the usage of economic terms when dealing with different aspects pertaining to environmental issues helps the society to better understand the issues at hand. In other words it helps create an impact and enables us to relate particular environmental issues into something that we all understand and value like properties or cars.

For example - we all know that there is great value in a rainforest. If one wants to take the Sinharaja rainforest which is a world heritage site situated in Sri Lanka into consideration, whilst one appreciates the so called “value” to society one is simply unaware of how important the rainforest is, firstly to the local community, next for the country at large and more broadly to the world at large. The Sinharaja rainforest is a primary tropical rainforest covering a land of 20 km East to West and 7 km North to South and has pretty much been taken for granted by us - Sri Lankan. I know that the few, who have seen it, appreciate the scenic beauty. However, none of us truly appreciate its resources and the oxygen and other benefits it gives to the atmosphere at large.

However, if there was an economic value attached to that rainforest, I believe we will all realize how much it is in fact worth to society and see it in a whole new light. Since I could not find any sites which gave an economic value to the Sinharaja rainforest, I researched on other world famous rainforest and settled on the Amazon.

The Amazon is undoubtedly the world’s greatest natural resource, and if it were to be taken as a country, it would be the 9^th largest country in the world. However, like every other rainforest worldwide, the Amazon too is being destroyed for economic reasons. What’s not appreciated readily is that the Amazon is the home to both animals and humans. Without realising the true value of this vast resource, the Amazon too is being destroyed little by little by the harvesting of timber, for cattle grazing and for the use of the land for agriculture by those who surround it. In this respect they have placed a value of the Amazon at US$ 400 per acre for the harvesting of timber.

However, when I compare it with the value per acre which has been given for maintaining the Amazon as it is, it’s worth goes up to $2400 per acre which is almost 6 times the value of merely harvesting it for timber. Thus the placing of an economic value in that manner makes us realise that it is far more important and far more valuable for us to sustain and nurture a rainforest of that magnitude rather than merely harvesting it for timber. Not only will it spread awareness among us but it will give the ingenious people in those respective areas an incentive to look after the forests. It helps us to realize and understand the value of the rainforest as it is and helps us to understand the value of the environmental issues that could come about if we were to destroy the rainforests.

Similarly when one talks broadly of the greenhouse effects or global warming and the resultant rising of the seas, it would help us to understand how it could affect us in our every day life if we can translate it into a known currency or in offer words translate it into a known economic term.

Why should the nations that own the Amazon not seek to profit from it rather than keeping it for the good of all mankind? Would it not be better if they were to use its vast resources firstly and primarily to enrich the lives of their own citizens?

These are the questions that can be answered if one were able to put an economic value to the benefits it might be able to obtain for instance by the sale of the carbon credits. A carbon credit is an estimated term for the effect that a particular act has for the saving of pollution. If one were to calculate the carbon credits that could be attributed to particular rainforest countries in which they are situated would be able to sell or trade those carbon credits to the developed world which counties such as the USA could then go about with their industries having done something to preserve the ecological wellbeing by safeguarding that rainforest.

I believe that reasons such as what I have outlined above greatly helps us to deal with different environmental issues if it can be equated and reduced to economic terms, and for that reason economic terms such as a carbon have become common place today.