The 20th-century philosopher Garrett Hardin (1915 -2003) was a deep ecologist. In his view, we should treat the environment as valuable whether or not it is to our economic advantage.
He writes,
A number of years ago I decided to plant a redwood tree in my backyard. As I did so I mused, "What would my economist friend says to this? Would they approve? Or would they say I was an economic fool?"
The seeding cost me $1.00. When mature the tree would (at the then current prices) have $14,000 worth of lumber in it - but it would take two thousand years to reach that value. Calculation showed that the investment of so large a sum of money as $1.00 to secure so distant a no more than 0.479 percent per year. So low a rate of interest has never been known. Plainly I was being a rather stupid "economic man" in planting that tree. But I planted it.
(From "Who Cares for Posterity," by Garrett Hardin, 1998, p.281)
