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longer provides. The loss of water has dramatically changed the climate and is quickly turning the area into a desert, with hotter, drier summers and colder winters. With declining water quality and availability, increased dust storms, and a host of other associated problems, the region has seen its rates of a whole range of diseases increase dramatically, along with the number of children born with birth defects. Once again, environmental problems caused direct human and economic loss with surprisingly broad systemwide impacts.
    The ongoing TEEB Report— The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity —builds upon the work of the MEA to provide an up-to-date and quantified understanding of the value of ecosystem services. One example they provide looks at the case of deforestation in China between 1950 and 1998, where a massive increase in the logging of natural forests provided the backbone for the construction industry in a rapidly expanding economy. This period of growth has vastly improved the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese, but it has not been without a cost. In this case, the study concluded that the loss of ecosystem services, in the form of flood damage, drought, lost nutrients, and so on, amounted to an economic loss of $12.2 billion annually. This loss amounted to almost double the market value of the timber over the same time period. For every $1 of timber sold in China, $1.78 of ecosystem services were lost. 11
    These are just a few examples of how ecosystem breakdown has far-reaching economic impacts. With ecosystem change and breakdown now under way globally, I draw two conclusions. First is that the economic impacts will be global and system threatening, and second is that these threats are no longer to our children’s children, but to us. They are hitting on our watch.
    So if this is the case, why have we not responded? Why do we ignore such pressing global environmental challenges yet respond so dramatically to economic ones, as we did in 2008 during the financial crisis?
    The answer is that despite the overwhelming evidence, we still don’t see these issues as economic ones. People hear and accept the environmental arguments, but they don’t fully accept their economic impacts. So I’m often told something like this:
    Look, I get these issues are really important and I care about them deeply, but while the loss of rainforests and coral reefs would be tragic, it won’t directly affect us that much in our day-to-day lives.
    This is a common assertion, which I understand looking at the history of the debate. It is the legacy of environmentalists and scientists focusing for decades on the ecological impacts, framing the issues as one of protecting “the environment.”
    Most people still don’t think they live in “the environment” but rather see that as “somewhere else,” so they connect to environmental protection in an abstract way. I don’t mean they think this literally and logically—people get the basic science of where humans fit into the ecosystem and evolution. I’m referring more to a kind of cultural context and resulting subconscious response.
    This view is deeply ingrained. For thousands of years, humans have sought to distance themselves from “nature,” which historically was a difficult environment in which to live, with many sources of discomfort and danger, from extreme weather to dangerous animals. So we have been steadily moving our society away from it and into air-conditioned houses, sealed buildings, massive sprawling cities, large comfortable “climate-controlled” cars, and so on. Not everyone can afford this, but even those who can’t mostly aspire to.
    So in this context, many people have engaged with environmental protection in an abstract way, separating it from their lives in both space and time. They see the threat being to the environment, as in nature—forests, polar bears,