Trading off our future . Therefore, trade may represent the single most powerful mechanism in the world, governing global economics and environment. Biophysical assessments can reveal the ecological capacities embodied in trade and measure to what extent they correspond to true ecological surpluses. After all, if each nation were to export only true ecological surpluses, then the net effect would keep the world economy cushioned by ecological stability. Measuring scarcity .
Market prices indicate little about biophysical scarcity of resources.
They only reflect the scarcity of the commodity on the market. For example, the gasoline price tag tells us more about how expensive it is to get the liquid out of the ground and shipped around the world, than how much is left. Accessing the resource stocks becomes easier while they are actually shrinking. Furthermore, by relying on the monetary assessments, the analysis gets one step farther removed from reality and may become less sensitive for time lags and non-linear effects, both characteristic for human and ecological systems. Therefore, relying solely on monetary information keeps us in the illusion of ecological cornucopia.