I was recently asked to post the cases that I would run or that are my favorite ideas. You would think this to be an easy question, but it never is. I have several cases that I think are interesting.

I feel passionately about the carbon labeling cases. In my opinion, anything that allows me, as a consumer, to make an informed choice without government dictum is a good policy. I like knowing what is in the things I buy. I like knowing where these items come from. I like the ability to choose to not buy Chinese products or to not buy foods with corn syrup in them. And I like the idea that I could choose, based upon my personal beliefs, to buy products that I feel pollute less than others. Offering consumers choice and letting that drive the markets instead of increased regulations on those markets seems to me to be a decent way to go.

Another case I am passionate about is the exotic trade case. I would likely expand it to include plants and animals. I’ve seen firsthand the damage exotic species can do in the US as I’m sure many of you have. They are horribly expensive economically. We sacrifice something as important as our land in order to have unique plants in our gardens or unique pets in our living rooms. That seems morally wrong to me in some way…stewardship is important and we aren’t being good stewards in any way, shape, or form. I think the mental pictures you can paint of the damage done are wonderful too. Very few people really love large snakes running rampant and eating children. They love even less that these snakes are adapting to our environment and moving out of their current living quarters into other areas. Very few people in the south love kudzu and the fact it is adapting to the temperatures and moving north is a really big problem. It also carries diseases that harm our crops. This case has huge significance economically and environmentally.

And the other case that really needs to actually happen is the pharma disposal case. This is another with great appeal because of the health harms. The problem with this case is that we have just started really looking for pharma substances in our water so there are more assumptions than facts as to long-term effects in the literature. Is it harmful that we are all on a bit of Prozac? Is it harmful that we are all on a bit of hormone therapy? Is it harmful that we all ingest antibiotics daily? Is it harmful that we are all on a bit of chemotherapy? The science isn’t clear yet whether these items in our water supply cause long-term harm. However, if it is a simple thing to start removing some of these substances from our water supply, I’d rather do that than wait on the scientists to tell me in 30 years we made a very bad mistake.