Discussion on Concepts of Ecological Services

Abstract In reading this you will see my thoughts on the concept ecological services. I will cover several different ideas that in my opinion make up ecological services. This will include but not be limited to food, soil, and pest management. I will also talk to the matter of water resources and the pollutants we are at risk to. I will then relate what the wonderful world of the internet has to say defining the concept of environmental true cost services with my thoughts and ideas. Hopefully, you will find the writing to be enlightening.

In beginning to look at the concept of ecological services I begin to wonder not only our country grows, but we as a global population grows daily and the question of how do we maintain enough food to sustain life and how does it affect the earth? In order to maintain our food security we need to look at how we are treating the earth we walk on. Several things come into play when looking at this. We need better soil conservation ways implemented. We utilize some of these by introducing terracing farming, alley cropping, contour planting as well as using windbreaks. Utilizing these methods reduce soil erosion and help to ensure a hearty crop. In order to produce enough crops are available to sustain life for the masses cross breeding through an artificial process has vastly improved our food supply abilities. Advances have been made to even have fruit trees bear items in a year, this is amazing in the sense that a normal fruit tree would take up to 6 years to mature enough before we could yield anything from it. This helps to reduce the chemicals we have to put on the crops to ensure they are mature enough to bear fruit and thus reducing some of the toxins we are spilling into the water resources we have a limited supply of.
In looking at the water resources we have to find better ways to utilize biodegradable or natural pesticides as to not to pollute/contaminate our water resource not only for drinking purposes, but as a sustainment for life and the production of a yet another food source we use. Fish and other wildlife depend on the water resources as much as we do to maintain the circle of life. In my opinion we as a human race are foolishly wasting our natural resources by thinking that they will always be available. Everything on this great planet is not renewable. We need to educate everyone to become better stewards by learning better ways to utilize ecological services for everyone. The planet is only so big and gives us only so much back, if we do not figure this out soon, our future generations to come are going to suffer more than we do today. In looking up the concept of environmental true cost pricing, this in my opinion is an excellent idea. It is a win-win situation by enhancing life as we now know it. This concept could/would decrease existing taxes on such things like income and making up the difference on the revenue deficits by imposing taxes and fees on pollution, natural resource consumption. This concept imposed upon big business would force them to work smarter for a cleaner environment. Big business would continue to thrive, but they will continue to narrow their profits if they do not go “green”. Industry is a huge consumer of our natural resources and by not going green and causing profit loss for the local farmers due to their emissions and pollutions into the environment, then they should be paying the difference for that local loss. I think that eventually if properly enforced this could have a great impact on things. I could see pushback politically but perhaps best discussed at another time. Reliable Prosperity: True Cost Pricing. (n.d.). Retrieved February 2011, from “http://www.reliableprosperity.net/true_cost_pricing.html”