True cost, true cost or why the earth is one sphere
Guest post by podcaster, socioeconomist and chef Wilhelm Geiger
Have you ever heard of cause and effect? Especially in medicine, people always talk about the importance of fighting the cause and not just the symptoms in patients.
Globally, our earth is that patient. We have just recovered from the shock that the earth is not a disk, which is actually quite a relief regarding the spherical shape, because in this case, one cannot fall down at the sides.
So just now (almost) everyone got used to the sphere issue, there "they" have to confront us also with the supposed fact that it is only "one" sphere.
"The earth is a sphere." We can be curious which of the three remaining words of this sentence will still haunt us in the future. Provided there is a future. [we hear Beethoven in background]
Very well. The headline says cost truth. Have you ever noticed that organic food is more expensive in the store than conventional? A liter of milk often costs less than a liter of mineral water? Meat less than vegetables?
Exactly! Actually, milk should cost more than water. It does. Much more! The costs are there, what is wrong is the price. But what is missing in the price?
The price does not include, for example, the impact of transport on the environment, neither the short term (e.g. health costs due to particulate pollution from traffic), nor the long term (very very diverse costs due to climate change).
You may have noticed. The costs do not disappear just because we do not pay them at the cash register. The costs are borne by all of us, the general public, and those costs again have a price, in Euros. Yes, really! [Again, we hear Beethoven in the background].
Euros, which we pay in taxes, Euros, by which our insurances will become more expensive, many many Euros, which will ultimately be borne by the general public, by all of us. And they will be accounted for exactly to the cent. Our spherical "mother" earth will collect them mercilessly. A few Euros with us, most with our children and above all with their children. Only because the collective of humankind was ultimately too stupid to calculate, or too greedy or both.
Back to symptoms. Customs agreements, import restrictions, Kyoto, Paris, SDG ́s, sustainability, regionality, organic, Demeter, fair trade, development aid, CO2 tax, CO2 certificates, CO2 levies, CO2 projects [sounds kind of like Forest Forest and Baba Gump] in the fight against climate change. Here we are treating a chain smoker with cough syrup. And after we notice that the cough syrup doesn't help .... we try cough sugar. Then something to gargle with and the horniest among the smart ones mix menthol into the tobacco.
Welcome to a world with soon 10 billion brainy people, where we just don't want to notice what the real problem is.
Summary: We can actually save 90% of all measures, into which probably 95% of all means flow, and do everything, really everything, to adjust our prices again to the costs.
The following exemplary arguments do not count and will be punished with a red dot in the cooperation booklet (so watch out!):
"It's so hard to calculate true costs." Dude, we built CERN, landed on the moon and flew home again, and and ... Quiet please, sit down!
"We are introducing a CO2 tax anyway." Please read again what we are breaking right now and see what of it is not related to CO2 and still causes costs ... Eutrophication, biodiversity, and and and ... Google it!
Since, as a 40 year old, I already belong to the squad of "old, white men", and I also wanted to save the world with workshops and Powerpoint presentations, I transfer this responsibility now to the youth. You'll do it!