No. of Recommendations: 4
Economists have developed a model for what things really cost in terms of the obvious costs of production, but also they not-obvious costs in the form of environmental damage. This would include the costs of adapting to climate change brought about by certain activities. They list a few examples in the linked article:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/19/cli...The article is pretty accessible; no delving into esoteric economic theory.
I don't like tofu, which is very cheap in terms of "true cost". We've cut back on beef, mostly because of 1poorlady's cancer a few years ago (yeah, I could be noble and claim it was due to environmental impact, but that would be a lie...it's because of links between beef and cancer that motivated us). Lots of chicken, and some pork (mostly). Beef is a "treat" now.**
True cost accounting methods have been under development for decades, but there are still several different approaches to what should and shouldn’t be included. True Price uses a “rights based” approach, premised on the idea of figuring out how much it would cost to rectify the harms caused by producing a given good, or fines that would deter the behavior in the future. It does not incorporate positive impacts from the supply chains it evaluates, on the philosophy that even a beneficial side effect cannot solve the damage inflicted on people and the environment.**It may sound silly, but we're planning on smashburgers in a week or so...already got the ground beef from a good butcher shop. Right now we have pulled pork that I made.
