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My Hope for Copenhagen.
Bitched on: Thursday, December 17, 2009
Time: 12/17/2009 03:37:00 AM
I hope that we will live in a world with less convenience.Time: 12/17/2009 03:37:00 AM
A world where a can of Coca Cola costs not just a dollar but a thousand dollars.
Why a thousand dollars?
Simply because that would be the actual cost of a can of Coca Cola.
Not convinced?
Firstly, about half of the cost would go to the extraction of that volume of aluminium you find in an aluminium can from some African country or Indonesia.
That could possibly pay for trees which were felled per square metres to extract that volume of ore; for the loss of habitat of some species and/or the land of the natives per square metre; and for the endangering or extinction of some plant or animal species (costs depending on the size or 'usefulness' of the species).
Another 50 dollars could also possibly cover the medical fees of the worker who had to extract the ore from sulphur gas-filled volcanic environment. Surely, that money would also have to cover the worker's pay sufficiently so that he won't be 'exploited', right?
Oh, don't forget, we also have to pay for the ingredients for the Coca Cola itself. We have to plant cocoa plants and sugar cane (for the sugar.. duh...). So we need to clear more land and harm more habitats. We also have to extract Kola nuts from the fragile South American rainforests. Add a few hundred dollars to pay for all that.
We need to be paying for the transportation of the ore/ingredients (we need to clear more forests for roads) to the factories (more land cleared, more workers who shouldn't be exploited).
About another couple of hundred dollars should be spent on the actual energy and pollution costs from the burning of fuel during extraction to transportation and finally to the whole process of production that can of Coca Cola (that is very energy intensive, FYI).
Spare a few fifties to pay for water wasted and/or polluted during the whole production. Don't forget the energy consumed when that can of Coke leaves the factory and into your hands.
Did I miss anything? Maybe I did, but I hope you can get the picture.
If this is really going to happen, I hope that there would be recycling bins that would pay you back about a thousand dollars for recycling. Only then would we understand the value of recycling, no?
Fortunately that hasn't happened yet. A can of Coke doesn't and will never cost a thousand dollars.
But all the other things I mentioned earlier have happened and are happening now to bring that can of Coca Cola into your very hands.
So take the value of money out of the equation and look at everything else that matters: life.
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