Externalities - The hidden costs...

True Cost

• Kalle Lasn | 15 Jul 2009

What is the real cost of shipping a container load of toys from Hong Kong to Los Angeles? Or a case of apples grown in New Zealand to markets in North America? And what is the true cost of that fridge humming in your kitchen, that car purring on the road or that steak sizzling on the grill? Practically every one of the products we buy in the global marketplace is undervalued because the environmental costs haven’t been taken into account. As a result, every one of the billions of purchases we make every day pushes the world a little deeper into the cosmic red.

But what if we were to implement this simple idea: true cost?

We calculate the hidden costs associated with products – what the economists nonchalantly refer to as “externalities” – and incorporate them. We force the price of every product in the global marketplace to tell the ecological truth. [More...]

Soylent Green is the economists answer to ever rising population numbers and ever diminishing natural resources. Processed field corn and soybeans provide most of the "delicious and nutritious meals" that we can afford. Monied interests and mega-corporate farms have convinced us that the only economical way to feed the nation is by offering "New and Improved" Soylent Green.

Bon Appetit