True Cost Economics - Free Markets with the Environmental in Mind

We are reaching a crossroads in the environmental movement. With many Asian countries rapidly industrializing, resource consumption is growing at a enormous unsustainable rates. Rainforest destruction in 2003 reached record levels, while increased oil consumption choked our air quality, our fisheries continue to be depleted, and our ecosystem irreversibly damaged. Something needs to be done, and soon.




Environmental regulations may have worked in the past, but in todays increasingly Globalized and trade-oriented world, it is evident that they are having unintended effects. For example, Norway may have the strictest eco-regulations in the world, but those regulations just mean that manufactures will just move their operations to countries with lax environmental regulations, such as China. And even companies that stay will have to pay higher costs (to meet regulations) and then have to compete with cheaper, environmentally destructive products from abroad. The system is inherently flawed – and is punishing those who try to protect the environment. Something needs to be changed.




The future may be, instead of trying to command environmental protection, to change the system so that it rewards those who pollute or consume the least, and punishes those, regardless of location, who pollute and consume more. And this system exists.




It is called True Cost Economics, and it is, through think tanks such as Oakland based Redefining Progress, and the anti-consumerist publication Adbusters, gaining momentum as the future of the languishing environmental movement. The basic tenet of True Cost Economics is that human well-being trumps economic growth. As most environmentalists know, economic growth is often a cover for increased consumption, destroying our future for growth today.