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Price Tags Needed for Gulf of Mexico’s Ecology

Of all the inadequacies revealed by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, maybe none is as fundamental as the failure of companies, markets and government to put a price tag on natural assets.

From deep-sea fishing grounds to shallow-water nurseries to hurricane-blunting wetlands, multiple Gulf ecosystems have demonstrable utilitarian and economic value. Yet except for one think tank, nobody has tried to calculate that value.