What do you call a business which never pays its suppliers? And their selling prices do not include raw material costs? Answer: Modern economy.
The root of over-consumption is not defined by how much we consume. It is the difference between our consumptions and our ecological contributions. We can consume like mad IF we can regenerate as much resources with zero pollution.
Oil prices are too high, aren't they? Not at all, If we consider the availability of known oil reserves, 100 times the current price is still a bargain! And, how much a nice wooden furniture would cost us? Or a piece of xerox paper? Without a doubt, whatever price we pay it is not enough to grow the same amount of wood. We paid for everything all right, well, except the raw material.
We must find a way to balance our credit-and-debit with Nature, NOW! "Garbage recycling" and "use less" programs are never sufficient to compensate our economical and population growths, short or long term.
Our economical growth is mainly powered by customization, cheaper prices and bigger consumption volumes. It is only making the situation worse because as more and more natural resources are being extracted, less and less profit margins are left available for the big change. Very few new inventions can really be eco-friendly as well as economical and they are constantly threatened by "even cheaper" prices.
With the wrong incentives, or the lack of right incentives, the majority of us have been trained day in day out to promote consumption through our occupations, on the other hand, we demand cheaper (and more) unnecessary merchandises to sustain a "higher" standard of living as a reward of our hard work, yeah, the hardwork of promoting more consumption！It is nothing but a big loop of self-propelled consumption.
In the grant scale, no consumer can resist the temptation of "better living" over "global ecology". Our occasional acts of self-constraint is not enough to change the bigger picture. After all, without real economical incentives, individual efforts are difficult to administrate or sustain. As least, it would be too slow to save us from an ecological meltdown.
Our worse enemy is therefore the structure of economy inself which engulfs every facets of our lifes.
We need the correct incentives embedded deep into the blood of our economy. i.e. eco is value, is money! It is the only way we can change FROM WITHIN.
Perhaps, we need something like this:
1. A new eco-currency, say #, instead of $, a real trading currency
2. A world eco-bank to manage this money
3. A global eco-committee to determine the eco-currency value for all controlled earthly resources, including water, oil, minerals, wood, forest, farmable lands and etc.
4. Any relevant extractions entails a payment to the eco-bankin terms of eco-currency, e.g. quota-based annual fees and deposits.
5. These eco-money will be redistributed to countries for maintaining and promoting ecology, evaluated by the eco-committee with specific appraisal schemes.
6. Bonus will be given to innovative breakthroughs, somewhat like the Nobel price.
Benefits:
1. Since it is real currency, all countries will strive to earn it as a source of national income. e.g., more farmable land and forest means more income; less extraction and more eco-efforts means surplus. And eco-friendly enterprises will become valued assets of the country and may receive tax-cut as an incentive. Of course, bad eco-management means eco-deficit.
2. Sanctions are relatively easy to adminstrate: any non-confoming countries will not receive national eco-income, and additional tariff will be added temporally or partially for targeted export trading. Other countries which import "illegally" will likewise be penalized.
2. Comparing to regulate individual enterprises, it is much easier to control because earthly resources are limited in terms of category. A tightened domestic licensing scheme can manage most relevant activities.
3. Since eco-costs have been paid for from the begining of all supply chain, there is no need for any further regulations in subsequent production and trading activities. Pollution is something each government needs to self-regulate, in order to earn its eco-income from the eco-bank.
"IT WILL NOT WORK, because..... " Yes, I know that.
Please tell me what can work! We need as much brains as we can use in this subject matter now, or reserve our "intelligence" to hunting animals for food in a not-too-distance future.
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