If you travel through Dulles Airport in the near future, you may see some lovely scientific images on the walls. It’s an exhibit called “Life: Magnified,” organized by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the American Society for Cell Biology and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority’s Arts Program. If you aren’t passing through Dulles, you can see the images on the web.

Here are a few of my favorites. You can see high-resolution versions on the web site, plus many others.

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The debates raging over how to deal with climate change often swirl around costs. Some warn that doing anything to stop our planet from warming will cost us dearly in jobs and revenue. Others warn that the cost of letting Earth get warmer is far more steep. It could flood cities, worsen droughts, and make it harder to grow food in many places.

Left out of these debates is the effect that climate change will have on nature–and the services that we depend on nature for. We take those services for granted, but if we damage the ecosystems that provide them, we’ll miss them. In my new “Matter” column for the New York Times, I take a look at how some scientists are trying to put a price tag on the global services of ecosystems, including protection against floods and erosion. If they’re right, the value is colossal–about twice the world’s gross product. Check it out.

Continue reading “The Value of Nature–to the Dollar?” →