still mulling...about "valuing" the eco-system

still mulling over much of what we said during our shared evaluation this afternoon,
including the report that the dynamic among the three disciplines was a source of tension,
with econ not working very well in concert w/ the other courses (in part because there
were non-360 students in it, and/but/also....?)

following up on jody's good questions -- given lapses, how might we move on,
given gaps, how might we fill them? -- here are a couple of suggestions
from my brother-in-law, the environmental consultant. he says
that the Ecosystem Marketplace website is a great place to be learning
about environmental markets (they have an eco-markets intro: conservation backgrounder,
including a glossary and description of ecosystem services; as well as an introductory
primer for assessing and developing payments for eco-system service deals);
here's a current article from that site, which he recommended to me in particular:
You can't put a price on nature. Or can you?

He also recommends the work of Robert Costanza, "a conduit to a wealth of
information on cutting edge research on valuing ecosystem services..."

Along these lines, I was also struck y'day by a New York Times op-ed piece by
Michael Bloomberg and Fred Krupp, on The Right Way to Develop Shale Gas,
which certainly seems to model a coming-together of diametrically different
positions in the so-polarized energy debate in this country...