Getting paid to save the planet...

Nicholas Stern says climate change could cost the global economy as much as $7 trillion. That's a good amount of money. More importantly, it, and other less engrossing environmental issues (ex. acid rain, ozone depletion), could very well lead to the end of the human species' era of Earthly dominance. Quite simply, we're all gone. Finished.

It's a frightening scenario. It certainly won't happen in our lifetimes (at least without the incidence of nuclear holocaust or an unstoppable disease), but it's definitely heading in that direction.

In other realms of our lives (at least in the developed world) we approach survival in an interesting fashion. We justifiably put a great value on human life and therefore put a great value on those who are able to save and maintain human life. For instance, we pay doctors a great deal to keep us healthy and let us live longer.

Should we not be considering putting a greater value on those who are trying to keep us around by mitigating the aforementioned potentially lethal environmental damages? It would certainly make "saving the planet" (not that the planet itself needs saving; we do) a more lucrative and appealing line of work. As a result we could have more people working towards these issues.

After all, if we seriously want something to be done, one of the most effective tools is to pay someone a decent amount of money to do so, especially if it's an inconvenience to us or we are not skilled enough to do so. Look at plumbers and lawyers, both of which we place a high economic value on for the services they can perform.

The option of paying people more to do good in the environmental sector has a few distinct challenges. First off, who is it that we pay? Environmental groups? Researchers? Companies developing renewable technology? Environmental lawyers?

And who would pay it? The government perhaps, but it might initially be a tough sell to the public. Private citizens? Maybe, but the environment is such an overarching issue that effects nearly everyone, so no single individual would feel inclined to pay for it.

The second issue is the character of environmentalism itself. The enemies of the environment are widely seen as those born of the capitalist system. The idea of making money and placing high economic value of things does not always fall in line with notions of the environment and environmentalism. Rarely do you hear about a rich environmentalist. And rarely do people go into environmental sectors in order to make a lot of money. Maybe this should change.

But as it gets more serious, we should look at these options of placing a higher economic value on saving the environment and ultimately humanity. Otherwise, we could be screwed.