Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services are the things that the natural world provides - such as air, water, storm protection, and pollination. 


We wouldn't be able to survive without them, so recently, there have been efforts to put a dollar value on them.  They want to do this, because it seems that in order to get any kind of acknowledgement, you need to have a dollar value on it.  This is difficult though, because it is hard to put a definite value on something that nature made.  At the same time, it might be worse if they just left no value on them. 


I think that we don't need a dollar value, we just need to pay more attention to these things.  I don't think that it is possible to put a dollar value on them.  Although, if someone disrupts one of these (say, clean air), it should be punished.

A World Without Mosquitoes

Would the world be better without the threats that mosquitoes pose to many people?  According to the author of 'A World Without Mosquitoes', Janet Fang, the world would have much less diseases, and the world would be a much healthier place overall. 


Mosquitoes have always been a nuisance to us - and difficult to get rid of.  In addition to this, they transfer tons of diseases.  If we were to get rid of them, these diseases would be spread much less easily.  But mosquitoes inhabit nearly every corner of the planet - from the freezing tundra to tropical islands.  And while it might not seem like they do much for us, they actually do play a big part in many ecosystems.  They pollinate many plants, they are food for many fish and birds, their larvae help to produce nitrogen in some plants, and for the caribou in the tundra, they direct where the caribou travel.  Without them, many ecosystems may collapse.


I think that before, I didn't really appreciate how big of a part that mosquitoes play in ecosystems around the world.  I didn't think past the itchiness of their bites.  I realize now that we could never get rid of them - they play far too big a part in the world to extirpate.