This article is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Carla Helfferich is a science writer at the Institute.
Popular wisdom has it that a healthy ecology means a lousy economy.
In this view, saving endangered creatures, like snail darters or spotted owls, leads to losing jobs, taxes, even whole communities. Preserving habitats implies closing industries. The choice has seemed to be between enough greenery and enough greenbacks. That perception may be changing, at least in some portions of the country. One place where the change is under way is near Yellowstone National Park, where research of a professor of economics at the University of Montana is being received with glee by ecologists.