The commoditisation of nearly everything

The Economist recently ran a piece describing oil, grains, fluids, wood, etc. all as pure commodities, which they describe as

“A comparatively homogeneous product that can typically be bought in bulk.”

I take issue with this extraordinarily narrow view of structures and things on this planet. I won’t even call them resources, because that loads them for human use. What about the non-market value of molecules, trees, wetlands or silicon? Commodity markets are among some of the strongest; as a result, both prices and trade have increased over the past few years.

Here’s the simple kicker: there are no infinite resources. In the economic long run, all categories and values of resources will be depleted and as they become more scarce, prices will rise.

So what’s the net outcome? Those with money get the goods.

But what if we refuse to conceptualize the ’stuff’ of this universe as solely an economic unit? How much is the Amazon rain-forest worth to this planet, for example? With daily harbingers of climate change and environmental destruction, perhaps the value of an object like this has risen.

I’m not certain what I’m trying to get at here, but just think about things in a different way, ok?

UPDATE: see: oil above $90/barrel.

light.sweet.crude.

Drink Tap Water, damnit

Honestly, there is no reason to buy bottled water. Tap water tastes fine.

Bottled water also has all kinds of associated costs - bottles (duh), bottling, transportation, waste, and so forth. If you fill up a reusable bottle, then you negate many of these problems.

One Hour No Power - Can it work?

I’m going to encourage this as much as I can, because I think that each electron saved is, well, an electron saved:

http://www.onehournopower.com/

Quite a simple, straight-forward idea (and presentation). Use no electricity on Sunday July 1st from noon till one. A worthy cause. Everyone turns off their own lights, homeowners and businesses alike.

To me, it is akin to the recent fascination with “user-driven content”.  Aren’t most of our economic operations already user, or human driven? The coordination of our electrical (-and other resource) consumption is driven by distributions of supply, demand and transport.

One Hour No Power aims to knock at one of these three pillars of resource consumption - demand. Pragmatically, the ability to make your own choices is the greatest freedom you retain. Can we, through individual/group action send a message to the higher-ups through programs like this?