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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (93287)	1/11/2005 4:34:30 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

And that becomes a economy of scale issue. It may not be possible for free market forces and environmental concern to go hand in hand. What if the real cost to the environment is carried by those yet to be born? That debt can never be collected because those who ran it up are dead. This is the reason so much of the Colorado and Rio Grande river basins are so polluted. There is no organization left to pay and we have done that recently, often building public roads into wilderness areas (at public expense) with the real reason being the cutting of trees worth less than the road cost and the damage to the salmon runs. But unless a logger also harvests native run salmon, he's not likely to bear the cost burden. Unless the lumber user is also eating salmon (and makes the connection) they are not likely to see the cost relationship in the lumber and salmon business. It may not be possible to mine, cut the trees and harvest the salmon, all sustainably. Short term market forces have allowed that very thing though. If I can steal fruit from your trees, I can sell oranges cheaper than the farmer across from you. However, you may go bankrupt. Then I just cross the street and steal his oranges. Even though market forces could allow me to do this, it isn't sustainable and produces an adverse effect on orange farmers as a whole.

To: epicure who wrote (93287)	1/11/2005 11:49:14 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

"People who buy organic are often willing to pay twice as much for organic foods-" Organic produce, as of 2001, accounts for only 4.6% of US produce sales, so not many people are willing to pay whatever premium is actually being charged. Besides, organic produce presents its own set of health risks, is considerably more expensive to produce (e.g. it requires significantly more land be tilled for the same output, which, BTW, results in more water quality problems due to runoff of sediments, not to mention fertilizers), and is often perceived by consumers to be of inferior quality to conventionally farmed produce. In any case, organic is not a viable option for China unless they want to bring about population reduction through mass starvation. A more viable option is integrated pest management (IPM) agriculture, but studies so far in the US and other advanced economies show only rather limited, if any, WTP for the environmental and health benefits of IPM produce, so IPM really needs to be justified (economically) primarily on other grounds (which does appear reasonably likely). "I think I would be willing to pay two, maybe even three times as much for environmentally friendly- especially if it was made in America, and was providing a living wage for someone somewhere in this country." Touching sentiment, but, certainly on the latter two points if not all, economically unjustifiable (i.e. irrational) behavior.