Law Commons^™

Ecosystem Subsidies Of Fossil Fuels, David R. Hodas

David R. Hodas

Ecosystems provide the invaluable service of collecting and storing solar energy as fossil fuels (e.g., coal, petroleum, and natural gas). These concentrated forms of energy were gifted to us by the sun and collected and stored for our use by ancient ecosystem services. However, our legal and economic systems fail to recognize the value of this ecosystem service that is embedded in fossil fuels. As a result, society uses fossil fuels as though they were free and inexhaustible. This market failure means that fossil fuels are being consumed more quickly than they can be replenished, which in turn has affected …