If I could meet any person, dead or alive, real or fiction, I think one of my top choices would be Steve Irwin. I’d want to meet him out in the bush, maybe in Australia, maybe help him re-locate a croc. Afterwards, we might talk about conservation and peace and wilderness. Or, more accurately, he’d talk, and I’d just nod vigorously in agreement while reveling in his radiance.
Steve Irwin is famously known for his larger-than-life television series Crocodile Hunter.
Very occasionally, I will brave North American culture and go see a movie on a ridiculously big screen with a ridiculously big bag of popcorn. Last December, a friend convinced me to not only go see Avatar on the big screen, but to watch it in 3-D with her. I was blown away. Though I find the current 3-D craze to be, well, crazy, I have to admit that it brought a certain enchantment to the fantasy planet Pandora.
“The federal government wants to put a price tag on polar bears,” begins this recent Globe and Mail article. It goes on to explain that Environment Canada wants to determine the socio-economic value of the iconic arctic species. This includes things like the bear’s consumptive value, cultural value, scientific value, educational value, aesthetic value, existence value, and so on. How much does each “additional unit of polar bear” or each “additional hectare of habitat” bring to the nation?