If you were to take a trip into outer space, you’d quickly find out that the most valuable things to us humans are the very simple resources we need to survive.
INVESTORS often like to talk about the price of things. Because to invest, to grow your wealth, requires some sort of appreciation of the inherent value or the worth of things.
They usually do this with stocks and shares. Nasdaq composite. Dow Jones Industrial Average. All ordinaries. FTSE 100. S&P 500. Hang Seng Index. Nikkei 225. ASX200. And so on.
As if the the value of companies is all that matters. But are financial investors really even all that qualified to valuate, to decide about true “value”? I’m starting to doubt they are. I don’t think they are. I think it is us scientists should really be setting the true inherent value of things…
If you type “what is the most valuable thing in the universe?” into google, nine of the top ten ‘results’ talk about money. I might as well have typed “what is the most expensive thing in the universe?”.
It’s not the same thing though, is it? So let me tell you something about ‘value’. The most valuable things in the world cannot be bought or sold. To begin with, things are only worth what people are prepared to pay for them. Anything that can’t be recreated, replicated or reproduced by man somehow is deemed ‘priceless’ – it is a a term which essentially means we cannot place a true value on something that is irreplaceable.
Just recently, a banana duct taped to a wall fetched a $6.2 million asking price. This “investor” bought it. I think they saw him coming really. The backlash was swift, and he had to turn off his comments.🤦♂️
We live in a very special place and every single day of our lives we take it for granted. The average place in the universe is devoid of oxygen, has no atmospheric pressure, no water, no food, no gravity and is 270.45°C degrees below freezing. If you were starving, dying of thirst, freezing or gasping for oxygen, I’m sure you’d find that all of those over-priced garbage items on any “most expensive things in the world” list would suddenly become completely useless to you and therefore utterly worthless in the whole scheme of things.
That’s why the cleverest scientists believe that the most valuable thing to us humans is nature. Life. Biodiversity. The ecosystem we all take for granted – that’s definitely the most valuable thing that exists today. Not just by a little bit. But by a long, long, long way.
If there’s any hope at all in confronting our mounting environmental problems, I think we as a modern civilisation with a globally interconnected economy should stop freeloading off nature and start treating this planet’s ecological system services more as financial stocks. Let’s initially call it “Earth 100” or something. “Gaea 1000” would probably be a more accurate description, as Earth’s ecosystems do way more than 100 things for us completely for free. Until now.
And I’m not talking about carbon capture or storage here either. Because you can already buy those kinds of “green” stocks. Maybe that’s the start of it. The trouble with that approach is, the trees and soil that already supply our lifeblood air and food (and have been for hundreds of millions of years) aren’t being taken into account in the global world economy.
I’ll start a new paragraph but this is a continuation of that train of thought. I am not being paid even one cent for the trees that are freely growing on my 2 acre property. So if I were to be one day reimbursed for this, if I were to apply for the Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), have I actually planted any trees to achieve those carbon credits? No, the trees were already present and growing (we are rewilding it). I may not have cut them down, which is good, but they were here anyway.
There are plenty of forests around the world that aren’t included on any dodgy carbon credit schemes. That’s precisely my point. Paying for carbon capture forests is only going to work if you start reversing urbanised land and replanting trees on it that were once there before any industrialisation took place. Otherwise, you’re just fooling yourself.
How would that actually work in practice? Well the truth is I don’t know. I’m not an economist. But instead of having one lone share price to encompass everything that mother nature does for us, it might work better, people might take it more seriously, if it was divided up into different categories or sectors. How could we divide it up? How would we?
Imagine if investors could buy a stake in a large swathe of Amazonian rainforest, say. As a whole. But completely untouched. With part of the rule that no further urbanisation was possible. Then, it would have inherent value, as a financial investment that is, to leave it completely alone and not “develop” it (an ecologist would tell you that it has already been developing for billions of years; because it has been, that’s that’s exact truth of the matter, right? I’ll refrain from using the word “development” from now on). Then, as we realise the value of nature more and more, as forests are depleted elsewhere, the value of that Amazon stock would rightly go up. Because it becomes more precious, more valuable.
Or let’s take the ocean. There could be an “ocean stock”. Because we get most* of our fish from it don’t we? Or perhaps the ocean could be separated into separate ocean stocks instead of being bundled into just one great big stock. To better reflect the true dynamics of the situation. So the three letter codes for ocean stocks might be “ATL” for the Atlantic Ocean, “PAC” for the Pacific Ocean and “IND” for the Indian Ocean. That way, if something bad happens to any of the oceans, those specific ocean stocks would thus go down and hence investors would be financially punished for it.
* Fishermen will rightly point out freshwater fish. So maybe there could be a freshwater lake stock.
Or, perhaps it would be better to separate out a few things into what matters most for people. Air, fresh water and food, in that order. You can survive for 3 minutes without water, 3 days without water and maybe 3 months without food. After that you’re practically dead, so those things must be the most valuable things in the world today. Not the $6.2 million dollar banana. Right?
So if we take this approach, and maybe we can take both approaches simultaneously, I’m talking air. I’m talking about paying for air. Oxygen and nitrogen. We didn’t create it. Air. We only borrow it and use it (and without EVER paying for it I might add). Our atmosphere was created by cyanobacteria which evolved chlorophyll-based photosynthesis. That process, called the “great oxidation event” took some 400 million years. And this is half the trouble. Some rather naïve/gullible misinformed people still think the Earth is only 2,000 years old.
Because over on Elon’s favourite planet Mars he’d certainly have to pay for it. But he’s not paying for it here. We’re not paying for it here. But let’s get back to that, because with today’s cost of living pressures, I don’t think that would be a very popular proposition at the moment.
Next, I’m talking soil. This may or may not come as a shock, but we don’t technically “pay” for our soil currently either. Yes I mean if you go to Bunnings or Walmart or wherever and buy a great big 20kg bag of low-quality soil, you certainly pay for it over at the counter, yes. But the person who sold it to Bunnings or Walmart took it from somewhere. Where did they get it from? Who created it? Did they pay for it? Sure, they may have “paid” for the land, the real estate, but who initially created that soil? It certainly wasn’t people. Now, yes technically somebody might have acummulated some vegetable matter and composted it. But my point is, did they personally create all the living organisms in it? No, no they didn’t.
People don’t create soil, millions and millions of tiny little bugs do, that’s who. Insects and microscopic bacteria. Are they being paid? What if they go extinct? What then? Soil quality on farms is degrading due to oversalination and a load of other factors. Now it’s getting even worse with genetically modified crops. I once stopped off on my honeymoon road trip to look at a genetically modified canola crop in Western Australia’s wheatbelt region. I did not see a single insect. Just… nothing. Bugs were just… absent. Which very unusually for Australia. And for me quite eerie. I had this foreboding feeling that none of this is going to end well.
Who will continue creating soil for us for free? We’d have to resort to doing it ourselves. The problem there is, we don’t know how. With our current understanding level of biomolecular chemistry, it’s impossible! We don’t have the technology to create all those organic compounds for free! We don’t know what we’re doing! We couldn’t do it even if we did know how. It wouldn’t be economically viable! Once these organisms go extinct, that’s it! They’ve taken millions of years to evolve! So better to continue outsourcing this soil creation job to the bugs, but shouldn’t we then include them in our eco system services stock? Otherwise, if that’s not even being valued, then we risk risk collapsing soil quality.
Next, let’s take the example of clothing. If we’re to use less petroleum products in future, we’d have to stop using nylon, polyester and other synthetic textile materials. Much of our clothing is made of cotton. Which is cellulose. Basically. Can we ‘make’ our own “synthetic cellulose”? Well the problem there is that so called “man-made” cellulosic fibers are actually derived from wood pulp or other plant materials. So we’re right back to where we started. Nature has created that chemical compound, and if we had to create it from scratch ourselve, from first principles, starting with separate carbon, oxygen and hydrogen atoms that is, it’s always a lot harder. A lot harder. So hard that no that’s not the way we do it. If it was, as I say, it would be a lot more expensive.
And I could make the same argument about any other natural fiber such as bamboo, hemp, linen, ramie or whatever. We don’t create the compounds in those natural fibers, biodiversity does. If it’s a natural so-called “bast-based” fiber such as the examples given above, soil is needed to grow those crops. If it’s not, then it’s an animal based fiber, such as silk, cashmere, angora or wool, and in that case, soil is still needed anyway to grow the food to feed those silkworms, sheep and goats. Right? If not, then it’s a synthetic fiber, which usually means it comes from petroleum byproducts (read: fossil fuels) or some other natural space anyway. So ultimately, what I am saying is that we are totally reliant on Earth, nothing is really “synthetic” or “man-made”, it always always always come from nature, from natural spaces, and the more we come to realise that, the better off we’ll be as a civilisation long term.
Our breathable atmosphere and soil has been building up over hundreds of millions of years. Then we come along and exploit it. I’m pretty sure that if Elon Musk had to factor in the value of all these eco system services, he’d give up on his boyish childhood pipedream of ever colonising Mars. He’d realise it’s not profitable, and he’d re-focus his efforts on “saving humanity” right back here on Mother Earth.
I personally think that the most valuable thing in your home may well be the compost heap, the dirt on the sole of your shoe, or even the contents of your vacuum cleaner bag. Soil. Because every single time I look at an insect, I don’t see a ‘pest’; rather, I see a self-assembling, self-sustaining, self-powering, self-organising, self-replicating natural ‘robotic-like’ entity – which is also completely biodegradeable and compostable. Even something as unassuming as dust contains “ecological nanobots” – in the form of dust mites. If none of these creatures existed, we would be swimming in a veritable sea of dead skin and hair!
“As far as I know, there is no environment on Earth that is more biologically diverse, per unit area, than soil” – Eric Triplett, microbiologist
Every gram of soil contains millions upon millions of natural, biological organisms; there may be thousands of species present, each with a particular function. Not only do all of these tiny bugs arrange themselves and order themselves, but they do so at no cost. No one needs to tell them what to do. No one needs to program them. They don’t require software or firmware updates. They just get on with it. And they do all of this without causing any pollution. Quite the opposite in fact. One organism’s waste is another’s food — it really is an “ecological system”.
“A teaspoon of productive soil generally contains between 100 million and 1 billion bacteria.” — Elaine R. Ingham
We have always trodden on dirt. Today, we take it massively for granted. Take the following expressions: “dirt cheap”; “eat dirt”; “treat like dirt”. We see dirt as ‘worthless’ when it should be exactly the opposite: dirt is a prelude to much larger forms of life! Dirt feeds us! Yet what do we do? We see a stain of dirt on our clothes or on the floor and we try to eradicate it. We bleach it. We ‘clean’ it up. Here the word ‘clean’ is a euphamism for remove, separate, exterminate, eradicate and destroy. We poison our soil with all manner of chemical poisons. We spray it with pesticides, insecticides, herbicides1.
Why do I think the humble compost heap is the most valuable thing in your home? Well, if it isn’t obvious enough already, I’d like to ask anyone this question: what would it cost if we tried to artificially replicate the dynamic complexity of a single worm farm? Imagine if DNA stopped working all of a sudden one day –in other words it became extinct– and we had to come up with our own new organisms for once. The problem is that even with our most advanced and emerging technologies, we wouldn’t be able to replicate a single organism, let alone a multicellular one. And to be clear, when I use the term ‘replicate’, I’m not referring to cloning, I’m actually talking about reverse engineering nature, from a “molecular mechanics” point of view. So the answer is not so much “what would it cost us if we lost this?” but rather the counter-question: “would we even be able to regenerate the functionality, at any price?”.
As a former materials scientist, I can tell you right now that the chance of us creating something like an artificial dust mite or a worm within the next hundred years is extremely remote, if not impossible. I’m not talking about ‘cheating’ by genetically modifying pre-existing biological organisms either, but instead creating an entirely new multicellular organism ourselves from first principles: an organic robot.
As of today, not a single one of our electronic devices can be composted. Not a single one! If anything, our circuit boards and integrated chips are very harmful to life because they contain copper, lead and many other toxic compounds. Even if we could create a nanoscopic, chemically-engineered machine, they wouldn’t be able to reproduce; they wouldn’t be able to operate indefinitely.
The fact is, we can’t yet place enough atoms and molecules precisely enough, accurately enough and quickly enough to be able to make an artificial lifeform from the ground up, by using proteins, amino acids and other organic building blocks alone. Even if we dedicated the entire human race to replicate a solitary, single-celled bacterium completely from scratch, an amoeba say, we wouldn’t be able to do it. It just can’t be done with our current materials technology, no matter how many resources or people you throw at the problem. We can’t replicate their functionality – and even if we could, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as efficient or as beautiful.
“I will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished, and never to be surrendered without a struggle.” – Edward O Wilson
The job that all bacteria, insects –biodiversity in general– does for us here on Earth is immensely complex. And because we can’t truly replicate a species whenever they become extinct, that makes what all living organisms do for us priceless. It seems wormfarms and compost heaps are indeed priceless.
Such is the power of nature, that all we really need to do is to leave ecosystems alone, and then plants in turn will grow from soil and create oxygen for us. And let’s face it, even if we could create our own cost-effective oxgygen factories, what do you think people would prefer to look at? A complex manmade machine or a rainforest?
Well, if you’re still unsure, we can harness the power of collective intelligence by looking at today’s flickr ‘explore’ function, which shows the 100 most popular photos on any given day as determined by the entire flickr community. Not a single day has gone by in which the flickr algorithm omits a landscape or a nature photograph. Indeed, plants are the most beautiful and efficient oxygen factories on Earth. Today, psychologists are already talking about another new disease, one that is not yet officially recognised: “nature deficit disorder”.
And you can probably see where I’m going with this. If I think a compost heap is the most valuable thing in the average home, then something like a Brazilian rainforest is indeed truly priceless in every sense of the word. A rainforest can store and utilise more carbon than any made made ‘sustainable’ technology. Nature is able to take the carbon dioxide out of the air for us. It’s able to take back the gaseous carbon that we initially took from it in the form of oil, coal, and wood.
What we need to do now is learn to respect nature, to co-exist with nature. As developmental biologist Bruce Lipton says: our job now is not try to control and dominate nature but to understand nature herself and learn to live in harmony with it.
What do you think is the first thing that astronauts will try to do soon after they land on another world? No doubt they’ll want to plant crops that will provide food, oxygen and simultaneously absorb carbon dioxide. They certainly won’t be making diamond-encrusted watches, will they?
I find it strange that people are willing to pay so much for moon dust or rocks from Mars. Suppose we were to do the opposite. Suppose we were to transport one tonne of soil to the planet Mars, to provide the immediate agricultural needs to help sustain a small colony there2. The cost to put that one tonne of soil into lower Earth orbit would be approximately $10,000,000.
Hopefully you should be at least beginning to appreciate how precious and valuable Earth’s biodiversity is to us by now. And I sincerely do hope that people are wise to remember all of this when we talk about colonising other worlds. It’s FAR easier to salvage what we’ve already got here on Earth than to try and start again somewhere else without so much as an atmosphere or an ocean to begin with. If you think our future prospects here on Earth are hopeless, just wait until you arrive on planet Mars people. Just you wait!
So on a somewhat-related note, I think it is time that we humans started to appreciate things from the correct perspective. It’s time to look at our place in the world. To keep asking ourselves questions like: “what is wrong with humanity today?”; “what are the long-term goals of humanity?”; “does our current civilisation want to survive the next thousand years?” and “what must we do now to ensure our own survival?”.
Further, I think that traditional economics will one day become obsolete – because economists never seem to take into account all of the important and incessant behind-the-scenes work that nature constantly does for us. I’m sure that if the world’s best financial advisors took ANY of this work into account, they’d soon realise that not only would humanity be totally and utterly bankrupt from all the pre-accumulated past debts owed to nature for all the work it has done for us already over the course of several billion years, but that we should really be investing everything we possibly can towards the future conservation of nature, to ensure that not even the most humble little species is ever threatened with extinction.
“Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.” – Edward O Wilson
Ecologists already know that nature is already highly sustainable, ecologically speaking. On the other hand, the trouble with economists today is that nature is viewed as not being financially sustainable. Yet we already know that we cannot survive without other species’ help. Indeed, so fundamentally important is the incessant and invisible work that nature does for humanity, I think the time has come to introduce a new kind of tax, an “oxygen tax”. Because every single one of us breathes oxygen, therefore everyone should have to contribute to the natural ecosystems that produce it. And I think it’s time we paid all of the money that is gathered from this tax directly to nature. By calculating all of the work that nature does for us on a daily basis, I think accountants and investors at the very least might start to value nature a little more than they do now. With a new oxygen tax, vast expanses of rainforest could afford to “buy out” their own real estate. Nature would be able to subsidise itself so to speak – to hire its own legal workers, its own conservationists, its own representatives.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Knowing what I know, I feel like I have a duty of care to humanity. So I’m going to go one step further than Edward O Wilson: I’m going to say that allowing a rainforest –or any virgin forest for that matter– to be cut down today, should be a crime punishable by death. And if there were only one reason to bring back torture in a modern society, it should be reserved for all the repeat offenders that continue to put nature (and thus ourselves) at risk of extinction.