They Want to Start Paying Mother Nature for All Her Hard Work

The global system is built on buying and selling, but often, no one pays for the most basic goods and services that sustain life — water to drink, soil to grow food, clean air to breathe, rain forests that regulate the climate.

Continuing to ignore the value of nature in our global economy threatens humanity itself, according to an independent report on biodiversity and economics, commissioned by the British government and issued Tuesday. The study, led by Partha Dasgupta, a Cambridge University economist, is the first comprehensive review of its kind.