Cost of going green???

Question

Are companies fleecing us customers, by offering organic produce and greener energy???

Seems to me that it would be cheaper using renewable energy sources or not using pesticides, and yet companies charge way over the odds, and people seem to be paying it out of guilt...

are companies cheating us???

Answer 1

Well, on organically-grown food, the producers are charging higher because if you don't use pesticides and GMO's that would mean a lower yield since there would be losses due to infestations and all that.

When it comes with renewable energy, the demand for vegetable oils, coconut oils etc. are now higher. Remember that they are also being utilized as raw materials by other industries. Hence, with high market demands, the prices are also higher.

Answer 2

i don't know if the companies are fleecing us. you mentioned cheaper renewable energy sources. where my daughters live they have gone back to using water power to produce electricity. i asked them what their bill was for  one month. you better sit down: $12.00 per month. i know that it is the truth because i was born and brought up there. it's in Massachusetts and before we moved to ct. our bill was around $12.00-$15.00 and we were outraged. it had been consistantly, for the 11 years that we lived there between $3.00 to $4.00. how many cities and towns are capeable of doing this right now. it was that way just around 45 or so years. that is 1 big thing to answer one big problem. but it leaves the people free to think of what else can be done.  in order to go frontwards we are going to have to backwards. the generation who could tell us how, are all gone. but there are people that are so smart that they could look at what was and how it was done, and probably improve on it, not for profit but for themselves and the rest of mankind.

Answer 3

The problem is that there are typically massive subsidies given to conventional agriculture that are not given to organic farming (i.e. the Farm Bill).  Moreover, there are massive tax subsidies given to fossil fuel industries (i.e. Energy Bill)--even in the face of record profits that are the largest in world history-- that are not available to alternative energy providers in solar, wind, and tidal. So, yes, we are certainly being cheated by corporate industry, but it's not the green industries who are cheating, it's the polluting industries.  You should certainly be writing to your representatives encouraging them to stop giving subsidies to polluting industries and to make investments in green industry. This will lower the prices in "green" agriculture and energy.

Answer 4

I think that the start up costs of projects like geothermal and solar thermal may be the same or higher than coal or gas, but the beauty of them is that you don't have to keep buying fuel for them. It might be a matter of time for them to get cheaper.

In your own home, you can save a lot of money off your electricity bill by being more efficient, then spend it to go green with Green Power.

Growing your own food and consuming less c**p in general should theoretically be cheaper.

driving a smaller vehicle or LPG car is cheaper.

Organic food, grown by you is often cheaper, but then if something eats your lettuce, you tend not to worry about that.

Answer 5

It seems like that is a question that holds so many people up and my friend and I decided we were going to form a community group that makes whatever green choices we can find more accessible. So we are constructing our website www.pennwynnegreen.org (not finished yet) to make information accessible and affordable. Our local library just called us to see how we could help them go green short of tearing down their building and starting over.... we have a real vision to have people realize it doesn't have to break the bank, take up too much emotional energy etc..if you want some info on specifics email at [e-mail]. We have some great local businesses we have identified and  interesting ideas to share...from household toxin reduction, unfriendly restaurants, local produce suppliers and on and on....

Answer 6

Going green is expensive, but in the long run, I think that even a few solar panels will pay you back, so theoretically, we will be cheating them...