There is no rigorous, objective methodology to account for externalities. It’s a bit like the ideal thermodynamic “closed system” which cannot actually be realized—it is simply not possible to draw a clean line between the various costs of economic activity and assign them to responsible parties because the economic activity itself is embedded in a cyclical environment.

My point is that we should not delude ourselves into thinking that we can arrive at “rational” decisions about resource use by reducing everything to accounting.