Blueprint for a Better Planet
(Page 4 of 10)
As the global economy expanded and technology evolved, the
indirect costs of some products have become far more than
the market price. The price of gasoline, for instance,
includes only production costs.
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Calculating the true costs to society of our reliance on
gasoline means including the medical costs of treating
those who are ill from breathing polluted air; the costs of
acid-rain damage to lakes, forests, crops and buildings;
and, by far the largest, the costs of climate change.
Higher temperatures can wither crops and reduce harvests.
They can melt ice and raise sea levels, inundating coastal
cities, low-lying agricultural lands and low-elevation
island countries. The interesting question is: What is the
cost of burning a gallon of gasoline to society?
No one has attempted to fully assess the worldwide costs of
rising temperatures and allocate those costs by gallon of
gasoline or ton of coal. Some studies on the external cost
of automobile use in the United States, however, were done
during the early—and mid-1990s, including direct
subsidies such as parking subsidies and many local
environmental costs. A summary of eight of these studies by
John Holtzclaw of the Sierra Club indicates that if the
price were raised enough to make drivers pay some of the
indirect costs of automobile use, a gallon of gas would
cost anywhere from $3.03 to $8.64. No studies,
unfortunately, incorporated all the costs of using
gasoline—including the future inundation of coastal
cities, island countries and rice-growing river flood
plains.
A world facing the prospect of economically disruptive
climate change can no longer justify subsidies to expand
burning coal and oil.
Something is wrong. If we have learned anything over the
last few years, it is that dishonest accounting
systems can be costly . Faulty corporate
accounting systems that overstate income or leave costs off
the books have driven some of the world's largest
corporations into bankruptcy, costing millions of people
their lifetime savings, retirement incomes and jobs.
Unfortunately, we also have a faulty economic accounting
system at the global level, but with potentially far more
serious consequences. Economic prosperity is achieved in
part by running up ecological deficits costs that do not
show up 'on the books but that someone will pay eventually.
Some of the record economic prosperity of recent decades
has come from too-rapid consumption of the Earth's
productive assets—its forests, rangelands, fisheries,
soils and aquifers—and from destabilizing its
climate.
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