On the ferry to Seattle last week, I was excited to see
that, if you buy a large coffee, it’s $2.50. With your own large travel cup. it’s $1.
Excited?
Yes!
Because that big price difference signaled another way of assessing the price of paper cups.
The real cost goes beyond any wholesale price. It includes the life cycle of those cups , the energy used and the pollution
released in transforming raw materials into single-use throwaways. It accounts for the energy and materials to package, ship
and distribute them –- plus the manpower, energy and materials to haul discards to a landfill.
Bring-your-own
discounts are invite us to pay attention to the hidden costs of stuff we take for granted.
A coffee shop
discount for using your own cup or a store refund for bringing your own shopping bag represent votes for other, more sustainable
ways of doing business.
They signal that dollars are not the best way to value our natural, human or economic
resources; that dollars ignore the importance of conserving resources so our grandchildren may enjoy them, too.
Dollars are a poor measure of unpolluted air, for instance. Clean air means healthier people, better crops and tourist-attracting
scenic vistas. Clean air doesn’t damage buildings or pollute our rivers and oceans.
Forests clean our
air and water, prevent floods and erosion, gladden our hearts with seasonal color and shelter other plants and animals. Yet
their value is measured in board feet.
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The inadequacies of the old yardsticks are playing out in
struggles around the world.
Treating water as a commodity has created a nightmarish clash of values, laws
and regulations that The New York Times waded into recently.
Michigan and Wisconsin
communities are challenging corporations hoping to sell a gazillion bottles of their local water. In Uruguay, Ecuador and
Bolivia, citizens beat back corporations that sought to privatize national water supplies; Columbia wrestles with making safe,
adequate water a human right.
Learn more.
No question that clean water is essential to life and health, agriculture and fishing. So, is access to
water a human right? Or something that can be bought and sold?
Battle lines frame our health care debate
in terms of money or power, overlooking significant questions like: Is healthcare a commodity or a human right? Is it
okay to make obscene profits trading on human pain and misery? Who decides what health care I need? Can I decide for you?
Stay tuned as global discussions wrestle with interconnected environmental and economic issues and the life-and-death
moral questions surrounding climate change.
An encouraging sign: Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in economics
for showing how shared resources — forests, fisheries, oilfields, grazing lands and irrigation systems — are best
managed by the people who use them, not governments or private companies.
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"What we have ignored is what citizens can do,” Ostrom said. She’s
shown that the rules for using resources efficiently also foster community and engagement.
A cynic is someone
who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, Oscar Wilde observed. Now we’re gradually eliminating old-fashioned
pricing -- and you’re invited to help determine what we deeply value.
Want to get involved? Jim Williams
heads a group looking at ways to balance prosperity and sustainability on the Olympic Peninsula. Email him or call 670-6424.
The League of Women Voters is deciding on two local sustainability projects. Learn
more from Caroll Hull, or call 683-5199.
Visit the Local 20/20 website for activities in Port Townsend, Jefferson County and beyond.
The non-profit North Olympic Peninsula Resource Conservation & Development Council embraces Clallam and
Jefferson counties. Contact Clea Rome, or call 457-5091.
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