&#62;"But the problem with that kind of reasoning is that if it is going to have a net positive economic effect that we can rape &#38; plunder mother nature to our hearts content and that simply isn't true."<p>I doubt that any serious environmental economist thinks this way. Economists do include non-monetary factors in cost/benefit analsyes, and the cost of environmental degradation which does NOT show up on profit/loss statements is one of the oldest topics in the field.<p>Dismissing the entire discipline of environmental economics as the work of "bean counters" is a really bad rhetorical start for any serious discussion of ecological policy, though unfortunately it happens often among the masses on internet message boards. I am really disappointed to see that these caricatures abound.