Sunday, January 8, 2012

Creating Wealth with Nature's Money

Jan 2012 Green Living Food for Thought

Imagine being able to have a business with very low or zero total costs including but not limited to startup investments, raw materials, machinery, energy, labor, and waste disposal. The operation of this business results in environmental benefits for the site, lower costs for the municipality, better health for the customers and the business operators. This business produces products of very high quality and value which are not at risk from competition from business rivals.

Ridiculous? There's more....

Imagine that the business uses nanorobots that operate mostly without supervision - programming, repairing, reproducing, and decommissioning themselves as necesssary. We can have this business in our own neighborhoods without any travel expenses and specifically without any new direct fossil fuel involvement. The business tends to become easier and cheaper to operate as well as more productive as time goes on so that the profit margin approaches 100%!

Are you thinking this is a useless delusional exercise?

Actually, the description of this seemingly miraculous business is simply of a compost-fed home food garden designed around salvaged materials, seed saving, and plant propagation. Compost worms are like nanorobots able to process food waste into top quality potting soil and fertilizer! Edible plants are like nanotech factories powered by sunlight that manufacture food. http://www.meetup.com/GreenNewYorkers/events/21841391/

Mystery solved!

The Wealth Creation in this example is achieved by recognizing the value of resources from Nature that our culture has socialized us to ignore or to discard as waste. However, in Nature there is no concept of waste...every output from a natural system is a valuable resource for another.

Examples of Nature's Money that are typically ignored or discarded include:

$$$ Compostable Food Waste and Yard Waste
$$$ Sunlight, Shade, Gravity, Wind, and Rain
$$$ Edible Weeds (take a look at - http://www.meetup.com/GreenNewYorkers/events/25198421/)

But wait, how economically meaningful can fruits and vegetables from a home garden be? Well, what would it mean to our society if we could reduce the need for food stamps, Medicaid, and Medicare? I can speak with authority from my own experience that my grocery expenses and health care costs are much much lower than the national average as a direct benefit of this type of home garden.

Here is the CHALLENGE to Green New Yorkers....let's look around for examples of Nature's Money mistakenly overlooked or considered refuse and figure out how to convert it into the Wealth that we sorely need. Our food system is just one of a myriad of areas in our lives to examine.

There's no time to lose when there is so much to gain!