Sustaining Environmental Capital

Résumé du livre

This study is a sequel to the 1998 report, “Teaming with Life: Investing in Science to Understand and Use America’s Living Capital.” Based on the intervening 13 years of rapid advance in both environmental science and environmental economics, this new work extensively updates and expands the earlier study’s assessment of the state of the Nation’s biodiversity and other environmental capital, the services derived from this capital, the escalating threats in this domain, and the needed remedies. It is now much clearer than before that the historic drivers of degradation of environmental capital — replacement of complex natural ecosystems with simpler man­made ones, invasive species, overexploitation of commercially valuable plants and animals, chemical pollution — are being compounded and amplified to a rapidly growing degree by global climate change. The largest part of this new report is focused on solutions — why government has an essential role to play in the stewardship of environmental capital, what approaches are most promising for doing so both alone and in concert with the private sector, and what specific measures this Administration could embrace to most cost­effectively improve both the government’s and the private sector’s performance in protecting these crucial assets. Includes recommendations. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.