The Future of Life: Why Conservation is Important The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson is a book that discusses a hot topic during the age of “Global Warming” and “climate change.” That topic is how will we sustain life on earth without destroying biological diversity and remain comfortable. He goes on to discuss that biodiversity on Earth is threatened by rampant human consumption and population growth. Yes, the world is richer than ever before, but as a result of this, ecosystems have become fragile. Edward O. Wilson then goes on to discuss a couple of reoccurring themes. These are values and morals, how preservation and conservation can be frugally friendly, and how biodiversity creates more biodiversity. This book shows that E.O. Wilson
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Wilson goes onto explain the advantages, specifically profitable, that biodiversity offers and made it very evident how important biodiversity is. He goes on to ask the question how can conservation be profitable. There are many examples throughout the book that explain how it can be profitable. One of the examples is in chapter 5, it is the New York City water system. The book explained that NYC thrived on extraordinarily clean water from the Catskills; but as the population grew the natural forest were being commercialized and the natural area was being polluted, altering the watershed in the Catskills. This forced New York City to face a choice. They could build a filtration plant that would cost “6-8 billion dollars capital cost” and it would have an “annual running fee of 300 million dollars” (107). In the end, New York City wound up restoring the Catskills Watershed, saving them 5-7 billion dollars and there are little additional upkeep costs. This is an example of option value: the possibility of biodiversity granting economic advantage in the future. I think that this was one of the great examples that Wilson used to show how biodiversity and conservation is profitable. Since I live in New York I’ve heard of this and it was easy for me to relate to. A lot of the reservoirs for the New York City watershed are near and around my home town. This is just one of the many reasons that I’ve learned from the book why biodiversity is
Wilson goes onto explain the advantages, specifically profitable, that biodiversity offers and made it very evident how important biodiversity is. He goes on to ask the question how can conservation be profitable. There are many examples throughout the book that explain how it can be profitable. One of the examples is in chapter 5, it is the New York City water system. The book explained that NYC thrived on extraordinarily clean water from the Catskills; but as the population grew the natural forest were being commercialized and the natural area was being polluted, altering the watershed in the Catskills. This forced New York City to face a choice. They could build a filtration plant that would cost “6-8 billion dollars capital cost” and it would have an “annual running fee of 300 million dollars” (107). In the end, New York City wound up restoring the Catskills Watershed, saving them 5-7 billion dollars and there are little additional upkeep costs. This is an example of option value: the possibility of biodiversity granting economic advantage in the future. I think that this was one of the great examples that Wilson used to show how biodiversity and conservation is profitable. Since I live in New York I’ve heard of this and it was easy for me to relate to. A lot of the reservoirs for the New York City watershed are near and around my home town. This is just one of the many reasons that I’ve learned from the book why biodiversity is