When you read of shrimp farms involved in modern day slavery, palm oil causing massive deforestation, swathes of the Amazon Rainforest destroyed for cheap meat…it begs the question: what is the true cost behind the things we buy?
As consumers we are directly responsible for gearing the economy a certain way. In the last century our greed for cheap products has gone haywire. We have unknowingly become participant in the global trade of useless consumerism. Jaded by the notion that more “things” will somehow equal to a happier life.
It’s summer 2021. Parts of the world are underwater: India, UK, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands. Madagascar is suffering from the most severe drought caused by the Climate Crisis. The PNW heatwave was so hot it cooked shellfish alive. Siberia is on fire, Sardinia is on fire, and fire season in Africa and the Amazon are yet to begin.
It’s official. The climate crisis has begun.
Instead of fomenting anxiety and desperation, I would like you to ponder this: Is our addiction to cheap stuff worth it? Or are we finally waking up to the truth: everything has a real price that we are conveniently ignoring.
What if governments didn’t subsidize polluting industries? Fishing and cattle ranching would simply be priced at their actual cost of production. What if palm oil companies had to pay up for deforesting Indonesia’s main source of rain? Or if Nestlé and Coca Cola had to clean up our oceans?
What if everything you bought factored in the human and environmental costs as well?
Polluters should pay, and so should we.
How could this become a reality? I leave you with a couple of solutions:
- make ecocide a crime,
- the roadmap to true pricing
- join Extinction Rebellion – Governments are so worried about XR’s growth that UK MPs recently passed the most draconian policing bill against freedom of assembly.
- Carbon Pricing: Gabon is the first country to get paid for protecting its carbon storing rainforest
