green GDP

this concept is gathering steam across the place in indian media circles.
jairam ramesh says GDP = green domestic product.

tehelka's latest article espouses this concept in detail.

Green GDP seeks to evaluate and place a monetary figure for a country’s environmental resources. Simply put: if you know the cost of something, you will value it. If you don’t have a cost for something, you are happy to throw it away. Says Pavan Sukhdev, founder of the Green Indian States Trust (GIST) and pioneer of the Green GDP concept in India, “The traditional GDP simply does not measure the value of forests in national economy. In that sense, it is not a true reflection of wealth at all. The GDP must be made to to take into account the value of natural capital that is being destroyed — forest losses, degradation, declining water quality, etc. — and the creation of human capital in terms of education.”

on an absolute level, i am averse to putting a cost on anything, let alone forests, etc.
monetary value has become the most easily understood construct in our society.
a sad reflection of how we understand things, i must add.

i had written about david suzuki's explanation of costing the value of the services rendered by our mother earth at USD 33 trillion.