Ecosystem services- how humans utilise unpriced planetary resources

Ecosystem services are all the benefits humans derive from nature. Whether directly or indirectly, human societies derive all their economic and non economic resources from nature, but that is not all we can attribute to it.

Ecosystems are formed when organisms interact with the physical space they occupy on the planet. It consists of biotic and abiotic components (biotic: anything that is or was once alive, abiotic: was never alive), and deliver various functions, such as:

i. Providing energy – Animals cannot convert our Sun’s heat and light to nutrients. When plants do that, and are consumed by herbivores, who are then consumed by other animals, they enable animal life and activity on earth. It is the ancient Sun’s bounty we use when we consume fossil fuels, for they are nothing but dead and buried plants and animals of several ages.

ii. Providing habitat – Life usually has a type of space it prefers to live in: a certain temperature range, an amount of humidity it can tolerate, the land it grows in, where its prey lives. These preferences are evolved over millennia and organisms that belong to a certain area have a distinct evolutionary advantage in that type of region.

iv. Providing planetary cycle regulation – Ecosystems and their interactions regulate all the biogeochemical cycles of our planet. Whether directly or indirectly, they produce most of the resources present in nature. Examples include fresh water, oxygen, seeds, and biomass decomposition which leads to richer soils and removal of dead creatures.

v. Providing commercial raw material – nearly every molecule on our planet comes either directly or indirectly through the ecosystem production factory. Even synthetic molecules are completely or in part sourced through this production cycle. Think of anything you own, anything you use, anything you want to possess- it was created by the planetary ecosystem in one way or another. Even synthetic molecules require humans to formulate them.

vi. Providing rehabilitation services – Humans use nature for exposure to beauty, companionship, relaxation, spiritual experiences, and cognitive enrichment. Nearly none of the revenue generated by industries based on the participation in these activities is reinvested in preserving or enhancing the ecosystems that support them.

Our empire of commerce and poverty is rooted in the soil we stand on, and everything that made it.

Is it possible to price these activities? Of course. The easiest ways are to simply add up what can be traced to nature in our global GDP… which is everything (Since we have not yet started mining extraterrestrial worlds, so at the moment nature simply means our own home). However, what about pricing the services that save us from spending money? When a bee pollinates a flower so we don’t use human hands to do it, or when a bird eats an insect that would otherwise eat our crop, so we don’t require insecticides, how do we count that? One way to do that is to simply destroy all ecosystems, and see how everything is priced with only humans and human food alive. A less dystopian way is perhaps to understand the services provided by the ecosystems as thoroughly as we can, and invest in them so that they become both, healthy and self sustaining, and replace the parts of our economy that are dedicated to being nature-substitutes, as well as enhances it (and we can later compare how much we are saving).

It’s important to understand that not all nature based solutions are harmless to nature itself. Of course fossil fuels are the greatest examples- because yes those are as natural as they come, but even more direct sources of energy, such as using solar energy requires the use of mining for rare earth metals; Hydroelectricity can devastate large land areas and damage life in the fresh water source used for it; Restoring apex predator population (as much as we are able) will inevitably lead to conflicts between those predators and the local human population. Even so, on balance, the scale is very much tipped to one side in favour of choosing solutions that restore ecosystems.

So how do we build our solar punk paradise? Here are some suggestions:

i. Education – Early and continuous instruction in what ecosystems are, the local ecosystems, their safeguarding, and their sustainable uses will help society as a whole understand how to live as part of ecosystems, and use them for human benefit (monetary and otherwise) without depleting them.

ii. Investment in Ecosystems – Large swathes of the planet have been left in desolation due to human economic activities. These devastated lands are in need of restoration, and investment in such restoration will help nearby areas by resulting in more predictable weather, and a nicer place to live, among other rewards.

iii. Payment for ecosystem guardianship – There is absolutely no reason communities who traditionally maintain ecosystems as part of their culture should do that work for free. First, it must be recognised as work, and next, it must be valued fairly and paid so that they are compensated for their efforts, and are also able to continue their cultural planet nurturing practices rather than joining the conventional economy.

iv. Creating safe zones – Humans are everywhere. Creating ecological hotspots without human settlements will help many species of flora and fauna thrive. Such areas can be sustained through tourism.

v. Policy interventions – Coordinated government action at the local, national and multinational levels which may include policies, regulation, taxation, market controls, or other intercessions in partnership with local and regional bodies at every level to drive change forward and bring people together.

Financing climate solutions – I

Climate oriented finance is often a nebulous, not-quite-defined cloud of international funds, bilateral and multilateral agreements, public and private initiatives. It’s an ever changing landscape, and several trillions of United States Dollars are required as of date to truly combat the ever escalating events 1, 2, 3 so there is no one way to pinpoint its exact components, but here is a first primer on climate finance.

Money used to help adjust to the effects of climate change (adaptation finance), reduce the future burden attributable to climate change (mitigation finance), and/ or help change our current ways of working that contribute to the perpetuation of climate change towards a low (or lower) carbon intensive economy (transition finance) is classified roughly as climate finance. Additionally, money used for capacity building or educating people about climate change and how we can adjust to or tackle the situation in the shorter and longer terms is also part of the money bag.

There are various mechanisms used to activate financing for climate change related projects, such as:

i. Multilateral Funding – money provided by a group of countries for a project.

ii. Bilateral Investments – Funds invested by one country into projects in another country.

iii. Global or Regional Climate Funds – These funds may operate at any geographical level. Some global examples are the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the Adaptation Fund.

iv. Blended Finance – using more than one source of funds in a way that different funding agencies take up different different risks depending on their own risk appetite, as well as different rates of returns. For example, a government agency may not require any rate of return on a project, but a private entity is likely to have a base requirement. These bodies will also have different capacity for risk. using a combination of such sources will allow for projects that may otherwise be difficult to fund. These sources of funds may be sovereign funds, private grants, loans, scholarships, crowd sourced, etc.

These funding sources use a variety of instruments to distribute money among various deserving projects. Financial instruments are a monetary contract that promise to transfer value from the giver to the receiver. A bank note is an example of a financial instrument. These instruments may be:

i. Debt, such as climate bonds or loans.

ii. Equity, such as investing in companies that work directly on climate solutions (for example, a company that researched how to produce electricity from non fossil fuel sources).

iii. Climate projects may also be financed through what I think of as ‘Indirect Financing’ or ‘Risk Financing’, such as providing guarantees for the funding of higher risk projects, in which case the guarantor is not providing the money to run the project directly, but instead assuring the financier that if they do not meet the required return, the guarantor will meet the deficit.

iv. Climate Derivatives are a type of instrument in which a party takes on the weather related risk associated with a particular event or project, and depending on the outcome, they may keep the premium paid to them to cover the risk, or they will have to pay for the weather damages.

As mentioned previously, climate related finance is a complex subject, and while this is a pithy overview of the basics, in the next articles in this series I’ll take up these topics in greater detail.

How to build an energy efficient building

I worked for 5 years in an architectural firm working in the energy efficiency/ sustainability space. Here are some things I learnt while working there about making buildings that are comfortable to live in, and have reduced energy consumption in comparison to buildings that do not incorporate such measures.

There are two types of building energy efficiency strategies- active and passive. Active strategies are those used to make buildings more comfortable or reduce energy bills after the construction is finished- for example, using air conditioning to make an office cooler, or installing solar panels to reduce energy consumption. Passive strategies are those that are incorporated into the design and construction of your structure.

I’ll write about passive strategies.

Constructions made with passive design strategies are automatically more comfortable to live in, since they are planned to be climate responsive to the area in which they are situated. For example, a house built in cold climate will be snug if it is well insulated, thus keeping the house warm. At the same time, a well insulated house in an area with hot weather will also do well with insulation, so that external temperatures do not make the living spaces warm.

Airflow

Designing openings in buildings such as fenestration, or doorways that allow air flow into and out of the room at body height helps removing carbon dioxide and harmful chemicals released by the various paraphernalia kept inside the building as well as wall paints, tiles, etc., body odors, other smells, and make the room cooler. Try to place the openings so that air circulates around the room before it exits. This can be done by not placing openings exactly opposite each other so that air does not come in and leave in a straight line, or placing them too close together so that air does not exit before circulating the room.

Light

Design your structure so that you need as little artificial light as possible, while also minimising the loss of internal temperature.

In cold areas, sunlight is at a premium, and large glass façades allow light inside the house. Glass also facilitates a greenhouse effect, which will also help capture any warmth into the construction.

In hot climates, make sure you get indirect sunlight into the house by bouncing direct sunlight into the building, rather than having a large glass section in the building envelope that allows direct daylight in, thereby heating the space (thus requiring artificial space cooling), and dazzling people’s eyes (thus requiring window drapery to block the light, and artificial lights to illuminate the space).

Overhangs are horizontal shades above the opening, and fins that may be vertical or horizontal will help with shade. Using extensions under windows that receive direct sunlight, which then bounces off them and into the room, allows indirect sunlight to illuminate the interior. Such construction design can be used in combination to help protect your building interiors from direct sunlight, while also reducing the use of artificial lighting during daytime.

Orientation

In the northern hemisphere, buildings that have windows or living spaces in the East or West directions will be uncomfortably hot in warmer climes, either seasonally or through the year- especially those in the West, as that region will have the hot afternoon Sun. North facing windows allow glare free light into the structure, while south facing windows also allow heat into the structures, great for geographies that are usually cooler.

In the southern hemisphere, our Sun occupies the northern sky more than the southern sky, therefore fenestration facing the south will allow for a cooler house, and therefore be better for warmer climates.

Building Envelope

The building envelope is the entire wrapping around any building- just like a pig’s skin keeps the pig together, the building’s envelope defines where the building is, and includes the outside walls, windows, doors, and the roof.

Make your building so that it keeps the insides of the building inside as much as possible- that is, use material that will last the test of time as well as any disastrous events (natural or otherwise) as well as release as few harmful fumes as possible, use good quality weather proofing such as insulation so that the temperatures on the inside are comfortable through the year (especially in regions with large differences between indoor and outdoor temperatures), water proofing that protects the building from dampness and mold, build in slants into the roof to help remove precipitation from it, and in hot zones, use cool roof techniques.

Neighbourhood

If your structure is short, surrounded by tall buildings, it will be naturally shaded. In case it is the opposite, you’ll benefit from Sunlight. Given the average climate in your geography, either can be great, or not so great.

The number of trees in the neighbourhood will also help cool the area, as well as slow down the wind (both, the hot summer winds and the cold winter ones).

If you’re situated downhill and in a heavy rainfall area, your basement and ground levels may flood easily.

Researching all the above points before you invest in your structure, either by building one or buying an already built construction will help you make the right decisions.

How would you measure fielding performance in cricket?

Cricket is a statistically oriented sport. Cricket fans are used to scrolling pages of statistics for their teams and players they wish to know more about. And yet, we don’t have reliable metrics for measuring and comparing fielding performances.

Fans know, of course, when we see a cohesive fielding performance, such as New Zealand’s against Pakistan during the inaugural Champions Trophy match in Karachi on Wednesday, 19 February 2025. We also know a sloppy one, such as India’s against Bangladesh the next day in Dubai. Greatness is always visible in the doing on a cricket field.

We fantasise about taking that perfect flying catch, or executing a a sharp run out when we play, but we still do not have a universally accepted set of metrics to really understand what a “perfect” catch is, or what makes a run out “sharp”. For a sport that’s managed to tame the nebulous Leg before Wicket dismissal into four measurable criteria (including the umpire’s decision), it sure is confusing why fielding continues to confound us so. Especially when cricket fans value it so.

I’ve wondered what it would take to build parametres that measured fielding performance, and asked different cricket writers about how they would go about it too. At the moment I think such a measurement must include the following:

1. Define the deconstructed components of fielding

    What are the parts that make the whole for fielding in cricket? I think we can break them down to getting in position, including speed and ball awareness; catching; throwing, with throwing itself divided into speed and accuracy; and field awareness.

    2. Decide how we value different types of catching

    Is slip catching the same as catching at point? Are they equivalent to a boundary catch? What about wicket keeping catches, with those padded cymbals for hands? And what happens when fields tag team a catch?

    3. Scoring

    Each fielder may be rated on the above, that is, scores for emplacement, for catching, and for throwing. Additionally, points can be deducted for errors and added for faultless execution, gymnastics-style.

    Now for expanding upon the four criteria I mentioned in the first point above.

    1. Emplacement- How a fielder gets into position.

      a. Ball Awareness

      A lack of ball awareness is most often evidenced in whether or not fielders are backing throws up. Overthrows are annoying, and often damaging. Dropped catches are also often about active attention, since players who expect the ball to come to them are also ready to field it, and ball awareness will allow us to gauge how attentive a player usually is.

      b. Speed

      Cricket already measures the amount of time a fielder had to react to an incoming catch, and we can certainly measure the distance the fielder is standing from the batter. Therefore, as middle school maths taught us, Speed = Distance/ Time. This will capture a fielder’s fitness and running ability, as well as their reaction time.

      2. Catching- Self explanatory

      Off the top of my head, I can count eight types of catches

      i. Tag-Teamed Catches- When two or more fielders are involved in completing the same catch. Here players must be especially aware of each other and cognizant of throwing the ball before they drop it, or braced to catch one coming at an odd angle from the first catcher. I believe points should be assigned to all the involved fielders.

      ii. Boundary Catches- Catches pouched so close to the boundary that the fielder must be aware of the ropes/ cushions.

      iii. Outfield Catches- Catches outside the 30 yard circle, but before the ball reaches the boundary fielders. It may involve either infielders or boundary fielders running to the catch.

      iv. Infield Catches- Catches at or within the 30 yard circle that do not include the ones detailed below.

      v. Slip Catches- You know the ones.

      vi. Keeper Catches- This is interesting because keepers have such a unique job. Of course they have the advantage of padding, but they often have to catch blind, and when diving can easily end up in front of first slip. They also must actively read the ball while it is being delivered, just like the batter.

      vii. Close Catches- Any variation on Silly Point, Silly Mid Off, Silly Mid On, and Forward Short Leg.

      viii. Caught and Bowled- When the bowler catches the ball during or soon after their follow through.

      3. Throwing- collecting and getting the ball back to the pitch.

      Throw Speed- easily measured.

      Throw Accuracy- also easily measured.

      4. Field Awareness

      Poor calling is exasperating to watch and dangerous for the fielders themselves, and fielders need to be aware of which end of the pitch they should throw to.

      So how will the scoring happen?

      One way to do it is simply begin each match at zero for each fielder, and add points as they field, or misfield, as the numerator, and the number of opportunity they had to field as the denominator. Each act of fielding can have a predetermined value, and at the end of the match, I propose we bring all the scores down to a scale of 10.

      A decision must be taken about whether each day in test cricket is rated separately, or whether performances are rated by innings, since both bring forth interesting insights into how different fielders manage sessions, innings, and days. A fifth continuous session of fielding is sure to differ from the first session in both execution, strategy, and energy.

      This kind of a rating scale will take into account how often a fielder comes into play, and will account for how good they already are, given that they are likely to be placed according to their previously demonstrated abilities.

      Of course, this will add to all the counting and mathematics we already do as cricket tragics, but as matches add up, we’ll have new stats to pour ourselves into and write articles about. I count that as a win.