NTRES 2201 1st Edition Lecture 19Outline of previous lectureI. What is communication?II. What are examples of environmental communication?III. Why does communication matter?IV. Narrative of natureOutline of current lectureI. AnnouncementII. ValuationIII. Exxon studyIV. Leopold and Land EthicsCurrent lectureI. Announcement*If you want to learn about study and intern options in Washington DC, go to 165 McGraw Hall at 4:45 pm on Monday, February 23 to learn about Cornell in Washington!*Also visit ciw.cornell.edu or email [email protected]*First exam: two weeks from today. Final exam information is posted… May 12, 9amII. Valuation*Putting a monetary value on non-market goods1) Divide environment into commodities, assign market value (easy way)2) How about things like clean air, or Bengal tigers? We must put a price on the priceless*Revealed preference: value based on what people actually pay*Expressed preference: marginal value (how much more is a house on a clean lake worth than the same house in a crowded city); difficult to determine because “surplus value”… just because someone is not physically paying anything doesn’t mean it holds no value to them. The only way to get a real idea of something’s expressed value is to ask people how much they’d be willing to pay (although this approach can give inaccurate answers sometimes, answers can be skewed)III. Exxon study*How much would people be willing to pay for an escort boat service that may prevent a futureoil spill?*Possible bias: -Sample: Only American households were asked (even though Canada is super close), only English-speaking households surveyed (missing natives)-Collection method: Lump sum (people may say no simply because they are opposed to taxes)-Pathos: They avoided pictures of oiled birds and otters, no emotional argument which could have swayed people-Final answer: Whether they use median or mean will give different answers, and neither are necessarily always an accurate estimationIV. Leopold and Land Ethics*Very suspicious of narrow view of economic progress, “economics is a poor alternative to ethics” *It’s a mistake to separate the environment into parts worth money and parts that aren’t*Interesting story: farmers were willing to accept money to not use certain portions of their lands… then when soy bean prices rose, they tried really hard to get out of their contracts*Leopold says An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on the struggle for existence (paraphrased). Philosophically, it is a differentiation*As societies progress, we depend more on each other, move away from a model of Competition; ethics also become more complex*Levels of ethics (and ethical obligation)1) Between individuals2) Between an individual and a community (Leopold says we’re pretty good at this)-Ecological knowledge is important to understand community-We have ethical obligations to many different organisms, humans and