true cost economics...

economics, in its current form, is a very limited science. classical economists are accustomed to quantifying cost in gain in simple monetary terms while ignoring the more sweeping ramifications of a particular decision. air pollution, for example, costs residents of ontario at least $1 billion a year in medical costs and missed work, but these figures do not make their way into the analysis of the businesses doing the polluting. neither does the appalling destruction that china is currently wreaking on the environment, the cost of which damage more than outweighs the country's rapid economic growth. there is no room for such crucial factors in neoclassical economics, the predominant school of economic thought that assumes that people's decisions are guided by totally rational thought processes. clearly, the destruction of one's habitat is not an entirely rational decision to make, and critics blast the isolated, 'autistic' manner in which modern economics employs a narrow scope and and a limited conception of cost and value... // brendan themes, utne