In response to a story from "Meat Week" on NPR: "This Chef Loves Her 'Pig', from Nose to Tail":

James Kling wrote: "We need to become MORE connected to how our food is sourced, not LESS."

When we are aware, we can respond.

As economic beings who weigh costs and benefits of various options, we by and large consider the price of goods and services when making choices.

We SHOULD be able to see environmental impacts when we look at prices. We should see them clearly. We can know that prices reflect an appropriate measure of environmental costs when fees paid by those who take natural resources or degrade their quality or put pollution into the air, water or ground are set high enough so that these practices are not done to excess. When most people say that there is not too much pollution of whatever kind, then we know the pollution fees are high enough. When most people say we are not depleting aquifers or helium reserves or whatever other natural resource too rapidly, then we will know that resource extraction fees are high enough.

When the price of the meat or whatever that we buy includes these fees paid for environmental impacts, we become more connected to the consequences of our choices in a way that accurately informs our choice.

A Biological Model for Politics and Economics
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com/2007/09/gaia-brain-integration-of-human-society.html

I would hope that ALL producers who want to be involved in a sustainable industry will join a call for a shift of policy toward fees on environmental impacts, as a way to motivate and reward the shift toward sustainability. Those who believe that they produce with a bit or a lot less environmental impact than their competitors should be clamoring for such a change.

Beyond concern about harm to the environment, we may wish to reduce actual harm inflicted on animals raised for food. If we love pigs, we might want to impose a monetary penalty on those who confine them in ways that clearly frustrate their natural urges and proclivities. Such a penalty would favor those in the industry who produce in ways that most people agree are humane. (I would hope that a chef who loves pigs for the intelligent and sensitive creatures that they are would support such a policy.)

All fee proceeds should go to the people. This policy change will cause increases in prices of things essential for life. We need to make the change in a way that *improves* the condition of the vast majority of the world's people, through an equal sharing of the fee proceeds, which would represent the value of natural wealth that is the birthright of all.

Fri Jun 29 2012 15:01:44 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)

Diet Choice is a Moral Choice

Access to markets in Yemen - Sharing of natural wealth in the world

A comment on a Morning Edition story about the difficulty of finding food in Yemen

also posted to the NPR ombudsman's Open Forum:

Economists know that natural resources are valuable.

Most people, with a moment's reflection, recognize that natural resources belong to all people equally.

The NPR ombudsman, if he is reading his 'Open Forum' page, knows that persistence of economic externalities means that the least well off are less well off than they would be if we were charging fees to industries that cause environmental degradation, and sharing the fee proceeds equally with all people.

Why is there no mention of the fact that natural resource wealth is shared extremely unevenly in the world we live in when reporting a story about poverty and lack of access to markets?

What if natural resources were really owned equally by all?...

http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com

We would end extreme poverty throughout the world. That's what.

And overall rates of using up resources and rates of putting pollution into the air and water would be kept within limits that most people find acceptable.

Why is there never a public policy survey that asks the question whether we are using up resources too rapidly, or whether current emissions are within acceptable limits?

Why are these facts not noted in reporting about poverty and environmental challenges / sustainability?

Tue Jun 26 2012 08:45:31 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time)

Equal sharing of natural wealth would promote justice and sustainability