Have you heard of Temple Grandin? I must have been living under a rock or something because I had no idea about her and her amazing achievements – including designing equipment used in more than half of all American slaughterhouses that contributed to great steps forward in animal welfare. She also got a doctorate, is associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University, published several books and her life was recently given tribute in a feature film – all that in spite of (and some of it even thanks to) having been born on the far end of the autism spectrum.
This trailer gives a great overview of her life – and what a life it is!
Sometimes, when I raise issues like animal welfare in our agricultural economics classes, I feel like “that” person. You know, the PETA-supporting, tree-hugging, naive, doe-eyed idealist that people expect to sing kumbaya next. In ag econ, we care about efficiency. Optimal economic decisions. If you cannot survive as a small producer, you are clearly not … Continue reading What Are You Willing to Pay for Cheap Meat?
Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends! I hope you are enjoying your holidays and spending time with friends, family and loved ones. Now, one question – how do you feel about Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday coming up? Artists like Chris Piascik regularly criticize the “I’m SO thankful for everything I have. I am truly blessed — HEYY LOOK, CHEAP STUFFFFF! I NEED IT!! IT’S MINE!! GET OUTTA MY WAY!!” mentality that grips us around this particular holiday. Doing as much thinking as I do about sustainable consumption patterns, this attitude particularly pains me – especially if people end up buying things that they don’t particularly need. However, we don’t have to fall into the trap of the race for the best deals, and companies don’t have to follow the generic pattern of offering below-cost goods just to keep up with the competition either, as firms like Patagonia impressively showcase.
Image credit: Patagonia
They are well-known for supporting long-lasting rather than instantaneous purchasing decisions and first showed up on the radar with their infamous “Don’t buy this jacket” ad in the New York Times on Black Friday 2011.
This year, they go even further in advocating for sustainable consumption decisions by hosting Black Friday Worn Wear parties in their stores, where this 30 min movie about the relationship of people with their favorite worn pieces of clothing is screened, live music and food is offered, and a Patagonia repair clinic is hosted where customers can repair their used Patagonia gear. Check out this post to see whether there are parties in your city!
Have you heard of Joseph Stiglitz? The former World Bank economist that turned into one of the major critics of big international organizations such as the IMF and WB, penning books such as “Globalization and Its Discontents“? He was one of the first people I started reading when I got into international economics, and he … Continue reading Stiglitz Does It Again – Great Piece on the Insanity of US Food Policy
Happy Sunday! The sun is actually shining in Sweden right now (novelty!), so I will get ready for a run and leave you with two awesome links to look at over coffee or brunch. The first one is this Upworthy article that highlights the work of Marji Guyler-Alaniz, a photographer that decided to change the … Continue reading Sunday Sights: Of Farm(H)ers and Smart Sesame Street Characters
Well, after another couple of hours of editing (why does the final version always take so long to get consistent? And why did we nearly forget to include our most important source in the bibliography? Questions…) I finally sent off our Cost Benefit Analysis project to our teacher and thought that since my friend and I had put so much work into it, it’d be cool to share our results in a little more public way – for example, here!
For this project, the story begins around 2007 when Ecuador found its second-largest unexploited oilfield with estimated reserves of around 920 million barrel. The catch? It is sitting right under the region’s largest untouched rainforest, the Yasuni National Park, which is unrivalled in biodiversity – in one single hectare of the park, you’ll find more tree species than in all of Canada and the US combined; it harbors around one-third of the Amazon’s reptile and amphibian species in only 0.15% of its territory, and is home to several mammals on the brink of extinction.
Long story short, as I wrote before, the Ecuadorian government decided to give up on its novel project called the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, where it offered to leave the Yasuni untouched if the world community were willing to pay it part of its opportunity cost (the global community did not step up to the challenge) and announced in October that it would start drilling.
Our research question was whether this decision to commence drilling for oil in the Yasuni National Park is economically justified or not, if you take into account all the costs to society involved. To cut to the chase – it depends (economists’ favorite answer, ever). And cost benefit analysis (CBA) is complicated.
In order to do a proper CBA, you need to first estimate all impacts resulting from the project under consideration, then place a dollar value on each and every impact, and finally discount your results over time (we’ll come to that in a minute). If you’ve done everything correctly, in the end you will have a net present value of the entire project that is either positive or negative – depending on whether it would result in a net benefit or loss – and are all the wiser as to whether the project should be implemented or not.
What’s this view worth? And sorry, ‘invaluable’ is not an option in cost-benefit analyses. Image by Flickr user sara_y_tsunki, via Flickr CC.
I’m assuming the answer is yes. Which might be why the cut in food stamp benefits in the US – between $11 per month for a one-headed household and $36 for a four-headed one – that came into effect on November 1st may not have been a big-ticket news item, and went unquestioned by policy-makers. … Continue reading Could You Live With $10 Less Grocery Money?
I remember my childhood excitement when we would go to the United States for holidays – this was before globalization, before you could get any of your favorite big-brand foods anywhere in the world – because it meant that I could finally get my fingers onto those iconic cookies again. Oreos are one of the tastes that in my mind is intractably linked to America, to trick-or-treating dressed up as Pocahontas, later to long lazy afternoons spent reading Harry Potter on my bed – and even later, when studying abroad in Paris, they even served as the occasional lunchtime meal eaten on the metro while apartment hunting because they were the best thing the vending machines had on offer.
But you know how hard it is to stop after one cookie or two when the sleeve fits six? Turns out, there is new research showing that I am not alone in my self-control issues around Oreos – and that foods rich in fat, sugar and salt may just trigger the same regions in our brain that traditional ‘addictions’ (such as to alcohol, drugs or nicotine) do.
If food addiction is a thing, will that propel us toward a Wall-e-esque future? Screenshot copyright of Walt Disney Video, found at http://www.chud.com
Since World Food Day happened recently, I was surprised to learn that the USA celebrate their own Food Day today! Maybe it’s similar to the difference between the Canadian and American Thanksgiving, or between European and North American daylight savings time? I guess globalization has its limits. 🙂 Still, why not celebrate twice? Happy Food Day! … Continue reading US Food Day – How Food Literate Are You?
Following up on yesterday’s post – having to deal with an overpopulation of deer through culling, and the question whether to sell that meat or not -, this TED talk is an interesting alternative approach. This thought came to me after a friend responded to my post that one of the reasons that there are … Continue reading The Opportunities of Rewilding
Food (Policy) For Thought 