Does nature have value beyond what it provides people? CFAES researcher Jeremy Bruskotter and colleagues discussed that question in a recent Epoch Times article. A survey by the team in Ohio, for example, found that more than 82 percent of Ohioans acknowledged the intrinsic value of wildlife. In the same survey, more than 90 percent of people who strongly identified as “conservationists” acknowledged nature’s intrinsic value.
But if so very many of us believe in nature’s intrinsic value, then why do we seem to behave otherwise? … Why do we as a society make so many decisions that appear to be, or that actually are, inconsistent with the idea that nature possesses intrinsic value?