42: The Answer to Almost Everything — Season 1, Episode 58: What if nature had a price?

Episode synopsis

"Be careful! It's precious!" – we've probably all heard such warnings as children, for example, when we wanted to examine our father's camera or an old vase. That's how we learned to be careful with valuable objects. Curiously, nature is different. Even though it's the most precious thing we have, we humans don't treat it well. Not only do we use it, but we abuse it. Would it be different if nature and its services received some kind of price? If all of nature's free services were also made economically visible? For example, it provides us with food and drink, all kinds of important materials, cools us in the heat, purifies our drinking water and the air we breathe. In short: nature guarantees our survival.

About 42: The Answer to Almost Everything

What would we be without mucus? Can we live on water? How much does life weigh? Finding out the answers is the aim of ARTE's new science show. In a nod to Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", where the figure 42 is the ultimate answer to all questions, 42 tries to provide the answers.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Can we dig our way through the Earth?
• E2Could We Live on the Moon?
• E3Should we use lotteries instead of elections?
• E4How Much Does Life Weigh?
• E5Will we move onto the water?
• E6Can Algorithms Make Us Healthy?
• E7What if there were no mucus?
• E8How do we solve the nuclear waste puzzle?
• E9What if Fear Didn't Exist?
• E10What if the ice disappeared?
• E11Do We All hear the Same Thing?
• E12Are we too pessimistic?