The Value of Earth

Apparently, global climate change will cost the world economy as much as $7-trillion and result in 200 million deaths. In reading this, I was once again struck by the meaninglessness of economic valuations in the environmental context. If we accept that all life on earth is based on the health of the earth, how exactly does one place a price on what is essentially our umbillical cord?

Unless, of course, we all agree to a specific value to life itself. But this would raise all sorts of interesting questions like "who's doing the valuing?" and "are some lives worth more than others?" I don't know about you, but I sure as heck want to do the valuing, because my parents are worth alot more than whatever figure insurance companies might give.

One way around this is to simply declare life to be priceless, therebye making the total value of earth itself to be priceless. This would be equivalent to declaring the earth as worthless, however, as neo-classical economics deals very poorly with assets that are too valuable to trade actively in markets.

Which actually wouldn't be far off the mark as far as economists are concerned.