In a recent blog I read the topic being discussed was how people are fearful that going green and turning to alternate energy sources or focusing on recycling appropriate items will hurt our economy. The particular focus of concern is that curbing greenhouse emissions will harm economic growth. The Canadian government pointed out that by meeting the goal for reduced greenhouse emissions will raise unemployment and throw things into recession.
What are the cost people are willing to pay to keep their businesses running? Some like the company in China, are willing to risk the safety and health of hundreds of people let alone the long term damage an incident like that can do to the environment. Garfinkel discusses in chapter three of his book Forms of Explanation the different theories presented over history that argue what gives people the right for their holdings. What gives these companies who have no consideration for the environment the right or the ability to do whatever they want? Garfinkel quotes Balzac who says that, “Every great fortune begins with a crime” (Garfinkel, p.82). This quote was in reference to the mafia and how they would do whatever was necessary to come out on top. Is this not what these companies are doing when they do not take into consideration the long-term effects of their actions? I think it is, these companies are more concerned about profit margins than anything else, and discharging sulfur dioxide and harming hundreds of people is just a means to an end for them. Garfinkel also introduces Locke’s theory of holdings; “The labor of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes our of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with it, and joined it to something which is his own, and thereby making it his property” (Garfinkel, p.81). This could be argued to support these large companies in their decisions whatever they may be. The companies could argue that it is their work and the result of their labor therefore it is there right to do with their property however they please. While this argument may have worked decades ago it no longer applies now because so many new laws and liberties have been created to prevent people from claiming everything as their “property”. If we still entirely followed Locke’s theory, man could still consider his wife and his children his property and do whatever he pleases with them. Obviously this is no longer socially acceptable and laws have been introduced to prevent instances like this from occurring. So if laws can be created to protect certain things it is necessary to create laws to protect things that cannot protect themselves from organizations or individuals who share the same beliefs as Balzac or Locke.
Something else to consider though is that today we exist because the earth has been here to house us. The earth is the only thing that has remained constant over the hundreds of years of human history, yes it may have changed a bit here and there but there has always been the earth. Now today through emissions produced by us we are destroying our one constant and people are not doing all they can to protect it. Today people are so short sighted and can only see the dollar signs in front of them that they refuse to look decades down the road to how our earth will deteriorate.
Bibliography-
Rosenthal, Libby. http://blogs.iht.com/tribtalk/business/green/?p=36
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