My comment in response to the NPR ombudsman's introduction of the new Ethics Guidelines
The guidelines say that news reporting will be "as complete as possible".
Economic externalities are not discussed on NPR air. Externalities skew all buying decisions and business models toward more harm to the environment. Externalities mean more pollution and faster depletion of resources than what would be the case if environmental impacts were properly accounted for in the price structure.
These facts make externalities and options for efficiently and fairly accounting for them issues of public concern.
One efficient and fair way to remedy this systemic flaw is to charge a fee to those who take or degrade natural resource wealth and give the fee proceeds to the people at large.
(We should remedy this flaw so that prices will accurately reflect all the costs of production. When prices tell the whole truth about real costs, buyers will be able to make well-informed decisions and societies will be able to manage natural resource wealth in a way that is sustainable or that avoids instability caused by rapid depletion of resources.)
What other ways of accounting for externalities have been proposed? What are the relative merits and demerits of the various alternatives?
Cure for what ails the planet:
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com
Sat Mar 17 2012 15:58:10 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)
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