Sustainable Environment for all.

There is growing evidence that the somewhat apocalyptic nature of the commentary on page 1 164 is being considered most seriously by the present administration in the United States and by most of the other nations in the world. John Cairns, the titular spokesperson for ecology in Environmental Health Perspectives since the inception of the monthly journal in April 1993, delivers a tough message to the public in "Defining Goals for Ecosystem Measurements," suggesting that unless we make fundamental changes in behavior and lifestyle, the possibility exists that we will be unable to reverse the trend of decline in environmental quality and life. He suggests a variety of different conditons that would have to be considered and altered in order to accomplish the changes. Indeed, recently published papers (1,2) and books (3-6) reach similar conclusions after developing quantitative estimates of the world's ecosystem services. The authors pose what may be some of the most important questions for the millineum, namely, what and how do ecosystems affect humans, and are humans in danger of altering ecosystems to the extent that recovery is impossible? One is initially inclined to dismiss articles that project a doomsday unless this or that is performed, and some will believe this commentary deserves such a fate. However, there may be more here than we ever want to contemplate; popular and scientific reports are occurring with increasing frequency that detail the demise of primary ecosystems and that are unable to predict what the outcome will be on our centrist universe. A group of ecologists and economists published a recent paper in Nature that provides a starding estimate of what it would cost if one had to replace the services provided by vital ecosystems for earth (2). The value of ecosystem services, defined as 17 life-support systems on earth, broken down into 16 biomes, was conservatively estimated to be worth between US $16-54 trillion per year, compared to the global gross national product of around US $18 trillion per year. These estimates do not take into account the cost for a minimum level of infrastructure for ecosystems to allow the production of a broad range of services. For example, the single forest biome occupies an area of 4,855 million hectares on the earth and supplies ecosystem services for climate regulation, disturbance regulation, value of this service adds up to a value of $969 per hectare per year for a …