&#62;"There are many examples of very precious resources being squandered because of profit motives"<p>Ah, yes, the Tragedy of the Commons:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons</a><p>You are right that people have damaged the environment for personal gain in the past, but I still think that you are missing the point on what economics is about. In environmental economics researchers study why people use resources the way they do, how to design environmental regulation so that people will actually stick to it, and what resource use is likely to be in the future. "How to rape the environment more efficiently" is not a common topic of study.<p>Sorry, environmental economics was probably the wrong field to bring up. What we really want to know is whether or not these macroeconomic modelers take into account the value of ecological resources in their models. Tell you what, I'll scribble off a note to William Nordhaus and ask him. In my experience most academic economists have been very approachable.<p>Here's my letter:<p>"
Hello Dr. Nordhaus,<p>I have a question about the economic modeling of climate change. Do economists take into account the cost of ecological damage in their models?<p>I ask because this question came up in conversation a few days ago. A friend of mine claimed economic models were invalid because they only took into effect the monetary profit-and-loss effects of climate change and not the value of nature itself, but I wasn't sure if that was true. How does a resource like the Brazilian Rainforest enter into the model?<p>Thanks,<p>Jacob"