Whether the country that you live in is more wealthy or less, the choice to follow a typical western lifestyle bears a large number of hidden costs which are rarely understood by the average person.
Beyond just dangers from dirty air, both animal agriculture and driving cause an enormous financial drain. In this chapter we’ll look at the main areas where these costs show up starting with the ‘real’ cost of driving.
Sadly, the cost of owning, maintaining a car, insurance, gas, and others are a burden that’s upsetting to everyone. In the U.S. the dollar cost of traveling by car is usually tagged at 50 cents per mile. But what many people don’t know, is that the costs are much more then this in real terms.
‘Free’ Parking
‘Accidents’
Not Seeing the Forest for the Street
It’s easy to see how the enormous savings from bicycle travel would end up being spent on local businesses rather then on fuel and auto repairs.
The High Cost of a Poor Diet
I have not found studies focusing specifically on the cost of a western diet, and so I share with you the cost of the most common diseases associated with a western diet - heart disease, osteoporosis, and cancer. It is my personal belief that a number of other diseases are caused or worsened by a eating animal products. There’s more on that in the next section, but the financial impact is less definitive then for the ‘big three.’
I cover more on this in the next section.
“It is no coincidence that the same diet that helps prevent or cure diabetes also causes effortless weight loss, lowers cholesterol and triglycerides, cleans out the arteries, and returns the body to excellent function. But no matter how much research appears saying the same thing over and over again, the tide is unlikely to change because of the economic incentives for the medical establishment of continued illness and profitable treatments.”
Dr. John McDougall
On top of these enormous costs, the cost of our increasingly destructive weather due to climate change has been, thus far, overlooked. As I mentioned previously, each ton of CO2 equivalent causes $220 in economic damage. This affects the cost of living, the cost of goods, and even the cost of repairing the damage. (link) (link) So if you think that ‘hippy food’ is too expensive, or that cities shouldn’t spend tax dollars on bike lanes, consider how much worse off we would be if nobody was taking action.