In our current industrial economy people are paying for the fair cost of goods. RIGHT!?
What if that’s not the case. What if what we’re really paying is a falsified notion of the cost? A number that doesn’t reflect the real price of production. Let me explain:
When a commodity is priced for the market, let’s say a cow, both the cost of production and the value of the product are taken into consideration. To price a cow we would look at its production: $100 for cultivation of hay, $5 on medicine, $200 in labor for the ranch hands, and $45 dollars on butchering. So in this case a cow, which (priced by the pound) costs about $350. That seems reasonable.
But it isn’t. This fails to consider that factory farm conditions form giant cesspools of fecal material that release enormous amounts of toxic gas, and render the land in their vicinity unusable. That the over farming of cattle is depleting the nutrient rich topsoil little by little until it will be rendered unusable to grow anything. That the overuse of antibiotics are developing resistant strains of bacteria that increase medical expenses for cows and humans alike. These costs are ludicrous! The thing is, we just haven’t had to pay them yet. These effects don’t really become a problem until they reach a critical mass, at which point it will be too late to deal with them effectively.
Organic grass-fed cows, or cows that are raised in the manner to which they are adapted by nature (as oppose to corn fed, antibiotic laden factory cows), have much healthier lives, are healthier to eat, and taste better. The problem for consumers is that the meat is prohibitively expensive. The grass fed cows are mostly raised in a sustainable way; one that supports the ecosystem, and encourages health and biodiversity. The cost of the organic grass fed beef, while higher represents the true cost of production. The other beef saves you a few dollars at the cost of the future of our nation.
A parallel can be drawn to most other good and commodities. Some are sustainable, and reflect the true cost of production, like organic grass-fed beef. Others save you a few pennies, and fail to inform their true cost is decay to the very ecosystem, or social system upon which you depend
Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman recently wrote an article about the changes that need to be made. It was published in the NY Times:
As 2012 draws closer and closer, so too does the end of the prestigious Kyoto protocol.
ach day, and there is only so much available space the world has to offer in which to bury them. So what’s the most environmentally friend thing to do with a dead body? Or as the great Shakespeare would say: to casket or not to casket?
$6 billion can go a long ways. It can pay for 25,000 students to attend Harvard, finance one month of the war in Iraq, and even re-build the World Trade Center with plenty left over to spare. But it might not be enough to save one of the most renowned cities in the world from despair.
People are amazing these days. Last December, a 70-year old Indian woman gave birth to her first child. And now, just this past week, although not as physically impressive, a 70-year man from Colorado invented a line of solar-powered lawn equipment. So much for moving to that lakefront property in northern Florida.
Picture the Sahara Desert as a farming community. It just doesn’t seem right. Scientists have found emerging evidence that suggests the desert is greening due to increasing rainfall, and if sustained, the precipitation could revitalize drought-ravaged regions, reclaiming them for farming communities.
Only Dubai, a city that has practically sprung up overnight with some of the world’s most jaw-droppingly creative architecture, would construct an ecosystem reaching into the clouds.
Adding crop residue, bones, and manure to our soil could cure all of our environmental woes. If you don’t believe me, ask Brian Bibens, a research engineer with the 
