BMGT 496 - Business Ethics - Starbuck Airport Dispute
twinkletoes
BMGT496-Week7ResourcesandCitations.pdf
BMGT 496 - Week 7 Citations
(AJ+, 2016)
(Barrabi, 2019)
(Brusseau, 2012)
(Clelland, Dean, & Douglas, 2000)
(Cramer, 2020)
(Derouin, 2019)
(Fáilte Ireland)
(Grant, 2019)
(Oosthoek, 2014)
(Perdue Farms announces animal care changes, 2017)
(Stone, 2017)
(Svensson, Wood, & Callaghan, 2010)
(The needs of 7 billion people…, 2021)
(Toomey, 2012)
(What are environmental ethics and What's your role in Saving Nature?, 2008)
(Zhou, 2017)
Bibliography AJ+. (2016, January 29). What Is Environmental Racism? YouTube. Retrieved April 26,
2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrbeuJRPM0o
Barrabi, T. (2019, September 6). Starbucks serves up new employee benefits to lure workers in hot US job market. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from FOX News: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/starbucks-serves-up-new-employee- benefits-to-lure-workers-in-hot-us-job-market?utm_source=morning_brew
Brusseau, J. (2012). Chapter 14: The Green Office: Economics and the Environment. In The Business Ethics Workshop (pp. 627-664). Washington, DC: Saylor Academy. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://learn.umgc.edu/d2l/le/content/566199/viewContent/20379490/View
Clelland, I. J., Dean, T. J., & Douglas, T. J. (2000, May). Stepping Towards Sustainable Business: An Evaluation of Waste Minimization Practices in US Manufacturing. Sustainable Business, 30(3), 107-124. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/25062601
Cramer, M. (2020, March 1). Baristas at Starbucks Accuse Service Company of Abuse and Pay Gaps. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/starbucks-discrimination- race.html
Derouin, S. (2019, November 6). Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html
Fáilte Ireland. (n.d.). Environmental Sustainability in Business. Dublin: NSW Trade & Investment. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.failteireland.ie/FailteIreland/media/WebsiteStructure/Documents/2 _Develop_Your_Business/1_StartGrow_Your_Business/Environmental- Sustainability-in-Business-BT-ESB-C9-0913-4.pdf
Grant, K. (2019, May 22). Time's Up Comes for McDonald's. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from Morning Brew: https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2019/05/22/time-s- comes-mcdonald-s?utm_source=morning_brew
Oosthoek, J. (2014, January 23). What is Environmental History? YouTube. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkFdDPBbn20
Perdue Farms announces animal care changes. (2017, July 17). Retrieved April 27, 2021, from Feedstuffs: https://www.feedstuffs.com/news/perdue-farms-announces- animal-care-changes
Stone, J. (2017, February 23). Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to- your-health-heres-why/?sh=6e38b6605945
Svensson, G., Wood, G., & Callaghan, M. (2010, October). A corporate model of sustainable business practices: An ethical perspectiv. Journal of World Business, 45(4), 336-345. doi:doi:10.1016/j.jwb.2009.08.005
The needs of 7 billion people…. (2021). Retrieved April 27, 2021, from The World Counts: https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/Depletion-of-Natural-Resources
Toomey, D. (2012, May 23). Global Scarcity: Scramble for Dwindling Natural Resource. Retrieved April 27, 2021, from Yale Environment 360: https://e360.yale.edu/features/global_scarcity_scramble_for_dwindling_natural_ resources
What are environmental ethics and What's your role in Saving Nature? (2008, August 11). Retrieved April 26, 2021, from Help Save Nature: https://helpsavenature.com/what-is-environmental-ethics
Zhou, Y. M. (2017, May 18). When some US firms move production overseas, they also offshore their pollution. Retrieved April 26, 2021, from The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/when-some-us-firms-move-production-overseas- they-also-offshore-their-pollution-75371
4/22/2021 Starbucks serves up new employee benefits to lure workers in hot US job market | Fox Business
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STARBUCKS
Starbucks serves up new employee benefits to lure workers in hot US job market
By Thomas Barrabi FOXBusiness
Starbucks is rolling out a suite of employee bene�ts as it looks to lure workers despite a tight labor market, a growing �eld of aggressive coffeehouse competitors and the fallout from high-pro�le incidents at stores in Philadelphia and Tempe, Arizona.
The perks were announced this week at a leadership summit in Chicago for Starbucks executives and more than 12,000 store managers from the U.S. and Canada. New initiatives include mental health resources for employees, ride-share options to help workers get home safely and technological developments that will streamline or automate time-consuming tasks like inventory management and scheduling.
A strong, happy workforce – and effective outreach to the U.S. job candidate pool – is critical to Starbucks’ plans to open more than 600 net new stores in the Americas in �scal 2019 alone. The U.S. unemployment held near record lows at just 3.7 percent through August. A longtime leader among coffee chains, Starbucks is facing stiff competition from smaller local chains of high-end coffee shops as well as corporate rivals such as McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Brands.
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STARBUCKS TO OPEN WORLD'S LARGEST LOCATION IN CHICAGO
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“We’ve always listened to our partners, so it’s just a chance for us to evolve that. I think it’s really important right now in this competitive environment that we do our very best,” Starbucks Chief Operating O�cer Roz Brewer told FOX Business. “We think we’re known for having great relationships with our partners, but we don’t really want to rest there, because they’re critical to us.”
The new policies were developed in response to speci�c feedback Starbucks received from store managers, employees and tech-based monitoring of store ine�ciencies. Current plans call for the automation or elimination of 17 hours of tasks. Store managers will no longer have to double-check inventory, coordinate deliveries or set up three weeks of schedules for 25 employees by hand.
Confrontations at the Philadelphia and Tempe stores complicated community outreach efforts and forced the company to rethink employee training. However, company o�cials say the policy changes are tied to a close study of internal operations that began two years ago.
Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson meets with employees at a leadership summit in Chicago (Photo courtesy of Starbucks)
“Through strategic, long-term investments in labor hours, training, and streamlining tasks and processes critical to running a store, we will work to alleviate some of the pressure and stress that often limits our store managers to lead and grow,” Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in a letter to company employees.
A new approach to the mental health crisis is core to the company’s efforts. In Chicago, store managers will take part in training sessions with clinical psychologists to learn “emotional �rst aid” and other ways of helping their employees. Starbucks is also set to offer subscriptions to mental health app “Headspace” by January.
Moving forward after Philadelphia, Tempe
Though fostering relations with customers in tight-knit communities has always been core to Starbucks’ business model, company policies have faced unprecedented
4/22/2021 Starbucks serves up new employee benefits to lure workers in hot US job market | Fox Business
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scrutiny over the last 18 months. The trouble began in May 2018, when two black men, Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson, were arrested at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia after store employees called police because the two men, who were waiting for a friend, had stayed inside without making a purchase.
The incident sparked a national outcry and led Starbucks to take the unprecedented step of closing all of its more than 8,000 U.S. store locations for employee racial bias and sensitivity training. The sessions lasted for four hours and included 175,000 employees across the country.
In July, Starbucks drew renewed criticism after an employee in Tempe, Arizona, asked six police o�cers, some of whom were military veterans, to leave the store. Starbucks issued a formal apology for the action, which executive vice president Rossann Williams called “completely unacceptable.”
Brewer said the two incidents served as a “wake-up call” for Starbucks executives and informed how the company has trained employees in the days since.
“Part of the work we realized is that our store manager needs to know what community they’re in and how they need to service any issues in those communities – because those issues come inside the store – in addition to creating those conversations, going beyond coffee with a cop and engaging the community inside the building,” Brewer said.
Aside from the initial sensitivity training session, Starbucks released a series of online seminars called “Pour-over Sessions.” Accessible to all employees and developed by independent experts, the sessions offer speci�c tips on how to de-escalate tense situations in the store.
SBUXStock Symbol
STARBUCKS CORP.Stock Name
115.92Stock Price
-0.82Stock Change
-0.70%Change %
4/22/2021 Starbucks serves up new employee benefits to lure workers in hot US job market | Fox Business
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While the Philadelphia and Tempe incidents each triggered calls among some customers to boycott Starbucks, Brewer said they did not have a negative impact on efforts to retain staffers and hire new employees.
“Absolutely not. Actually, it’s the total opposite, because most people feel as though we handled that situation well and they want to work for us because of how we were so aggressive with the changes we needed to make,” Brewer said. “We’re actually really pleased with what I’ll call our ‘partner brand’ right now. Again, more work to do, but no, we have not a seen a dip at all.”
Future changes
Starbucks’ efforts to improve the employee experience will have a material impact on how its stores function. The current slate of task automation is expected to be complete by �scal year 2020, as will the rollout of improved “help desks” for employees attempting to troubleshoot in-store issues.
The changes are designed in part to free up store managers to directly interact with customers. Store managers will also have authority to make small donations to local organizations or charities as a means of fostering goodwill in the community.
Customers may also notice physical changes at their local Starbucks. After noticing that baristas didn’t have enough room to operate behind the counter, the company is testing out larger pickup areas for customers who placed mobile orders.
“It was very di�cult for our baristas to just try to force 80 drinks within a 15-minute window on one small handoff point, so we have extended in 200 stores across the New York, Manhattan, Financial District areas, we’ve expanded physically in that area because we know the need for convenience is growing,” Brewer said.
While many of the new perks are aimed at helping store managers, Brewer said the company will soon shift its focus on better training for �rst-time baristas and
4/22/2021 Starbucks serves up new employee benefits to lure workers in hot US job market | Fox Business
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eliminating stress for shift managers – employees who report to, and often become, store managers.
“We’re focusing right in on that position and making sure that they have all the tools that they need. We realize that a lot has fallen on that position and we’ve not looked at that position in a while,” she added.
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Chapter 14: The Green Office: Economics and the Environment from The Business Ethics
Workshop was adapted by Saylor Academy and is available under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license without attribution as requested by
the work's original creator or licensor. UMGC has modified this work and it is available under the original license.
Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books Saylor.org 627
Chapter 14
The Green Office: Economics and the Environment
Chapter Overview
Chapter 14 "The Green Office: Economics and the Environment" explores the multiple relations linking
business, the environment, and environmental protection. The question of animal rights is also
considered.
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14.1 The Environment
L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E S
1. Consider damage done to the environment in a business context.
2. Delineate major legal responses to concerns about the environment.
Cancun
Cancun, Mexico, is paradise: warm climate, Caribbean water, white sand beaches, stunning landscapes,
coral reefs, and a unique lagoon. You can sunbathe, snorkel, parasail, shoot around on jet skis, and drink
Corona without getting carded.
Hordes of vacationers fill the narrow, hotel-lined peninsula—so many that the cars on the one main street
snarl in traffic jams running the length of the tourist kilometers. It’s a jarring contrast: on one side the
placid beaches (until the jet skis get geared up), and on the other there’s the single road about a hundred
yards inland. Horns scream, oil-burning cars and trucks belch pollution, tourists fume. Cancun’s problem
is that it can’t handle its own success. There’s not enough room for roads behind the hotels just like there’s
not enough beach in front to keep the noisy jet skiers segregated from those who want to take in the sun
and sea quietly.
The environment hasn’t been able to bear the success either. According to a report,
The tourist industry extensively damaged the lagoon, obliterated sand dunes, led to the
extinction of varying species of animals and fish, and destroyed the rainforest which surrounds
Cancun. The construction of 120 hotels in 20 years has also endangered breeding areas for
marine turtles, as well as causing large numbers of fish and shellfish to be depleted or
disappear just offshore. [1]
For all its natural beauty, environmentally, Cancun is an ugly place. Those parts of the natural world that
most tourists don’t see (the lagoon, the nearby forest, the fish life near shore) have been sacrificed so a few
executives in suits can make money.
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From its inception, Cancun was a business. The Mexican government built an airport to fly people in, set
up rules to draw investors, and made it (relatively) easy to build hotels on land that only a few coconut
harvesters from the local plantation even knew about. From a business sense, it was a beautiful
proposition: bring people to a place where they can be happy, provide new and more lucrative jobs for the
locals, and build a mountain of profit (mainly for government insiders and friends) along the way.
Everything went according to plan. Those who visit Cancun have a wonderful time (once they finally get
down the road to their hotel). College students live it up during spring break, young couples take their
children to play on the beach, and older couples go down and remember that they do, in fact, love each
other. So fish die, and people get jobs. Forests disappear, and people’s love is kindled. The important
questions about business ethics and the environment are mostly located right at this balance and on these
questions: how many trees may be sacrificed for human jobs? How many animal species can be traded for
people to fall in love?
What Is the Environment?
Harm to the natural world is generally discussed under two terms: the environment and the ecosystem.
The words’ meanings overlap, but one critical aspect of the term ecosystem is the idea of interrelation. An
ecosystem is composed of living and nonliving elements that find a balance allowing for their
continuation. The destruction of the rain forest around Cancun didn’t just put an end to some trees; it also
jeopardized a broader web of life: birds that needed limbs for their nests disappeared when the trees did.
Then, with the sturdy forest gone, Hurricane Gilbert swept through and wiped out much of the lower-level
vegetation. Meanwhile, out in the sea, the disappearance of some small fish meant their predators had
nothing to feed on and they too evaporated. What makes an ecosystem a system is the fact that the various
parts all depend on each other, and damaging one element may also damage and destroy another or many
others.
In the sense that it’s a combination of interdependent elements, the tourist world in Cancun is no
different from the surrounding natural world. As the traffic jams along the peninsula have grown, making
it difficult for people to leave and get back to their hotels, the tourists have started migrating away,
looking elsewhere for their vacation reservations. Of course Cancun isn’t going to disappear, but if you
took that one road completely away, most everything else would go with it. So economic realities can
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resemble environmental ones: once a single part of a functioning system disappears, it’s hard to stop the
effects from falling further down the line.
What Kinds of Damage Can Be Done to the Environment?
Nature is one of nature’s great adversaries. Hurricanes sweeping up through the Caribbean and along the
Eastern Seaboard of the United States wipe out entire ecosystems. Moving inland, warm winters in
northern states like Minnesota can allow some species including deer to reproduce at very high rates,
meaning that the next winter, when conditions return to normal, all available food is eaten rapidly at
winter’s onset and subsequent losses to starvation are massive and extend up the food chain to wolves and
bears. Lengthening the timeline, age-long periods of warming and cooling cause desertification and ice
ages that put ends to giant swaths of habitats and multitudes of species.
While it’s true that damaging the natural world’s ecosystems is one of nature’s great specialties, evidence
also indicates that the human contribution to environmental change has been growing quickly. It’s
impossible to measure everything that has been done, or compare the world today with what would have
been had humans never evolved (or never created an industrialized economy), but one way to get a sense
of the kind of transformations human activity may be imposing on the environment comes from
extinction rates: the speed at which species are disappearing because they no longer find a habitable place
to flourish. According to some studies, the current rate of extinction is around a thousand times higher
than the one derived from examinations of the fossil record, which is to say, before the time parts of the
natural world were being severely trashed by developments like those lining the coast of Cancun,
Mexico. [2]
In an economics and business context, the kinds of damage our industrialized lifestyles most extensively
wreak include:
Air pollution
Water pollution
Soil pollution
Contamination associated with highly toxic materials
Resource depletion
Air pollution is the emission of harmful chemicals and particulate matter into the
air. Photochemical smog—better known simply as smog—is a cocktail of gases and particles reacting with
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sunlight to make visible and poisonous clouds. Car exhaust is a major contributor to this kind of pollution,
so smog can concentrate in urban centers where traffic jams are constant. In Mexico City on bad days, the
smog is so thick it can be hard to see more than ten blocks down a straight street. Because the urban core
is nestled in a mountain valley that blocks out the wind, pollutants don’t blow away as they do in many
places; they get entirely trapped. During the winter, a brown top forms above the skyline, blocking the
view of the surrounding mountain peaks; the cloud is clearly visible from above to those arriving by plane.
After landing, immediately upon exiting the airport into the streets, many visitors note their eyes tearing
up and their throats drying out. In terms of direct bodily harm, Louisiana State University environmental
chemist Barry Dellinger estimates that breathing the air in Mexico’s capital for a day is about the
equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes. [3]
This explains why, on the worst days, birds drop out of
the air dead, and one longer-term human effect is increased risk of lung cancer.
Greenhouse gasses, especially carbon dioxide released when oil and coal are burned, absorb and hold heat
from the sun, preventing it from dissipating into space, and thereby creating a greenhouse effect, a
general warming of the environment. Heat is, of course, necessary for life to exist on earth, but fears exist
that the last century of industrialization has raised the levels measurably, and continuing industrial
expansion will speed the process even more. Effects associated with the warming are significant and
include:
Shifts in vegetation, in what grows where
Rising temperatures in lakes, rivers, and oceans, leading to changes in wildlife distribution
Flooding of coastal areas, where many of our cities are located (Cancun could be entirely flooded by only a
small rise in the ocean’s water level.)
Another group of chemicals, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), threaten to break down the ozone layer in the
earth’s stratosphere. Currently, that layer blocks harmful ultraviolet radiation from getting through to the
earth’s surface where it could cause skin cancer and disrupt ocean life. Effective international treaties
have limited (though not eliminated) CFC emissions.
Coal-burning plants—many of which produce electricity—release sulfur compounds into the air, which
later mix into water vapor and rain down as sulfuric acid, commonly known as acid rain. Lakes see their
pH level changed with subsequent effects on vegetation and fish. Soil may also be poisoned.
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Air pollution is the most immediate form of environmental poison for most of us, but not the only
significant one. In China, more than 25 percent of surface water is too polluted for swimming or fishing. [4]
Some of those lakes may have been ruined in the same way as Onondaga Lake near Syracuse, New York.
Over a century ago, resorts were built and a fish hatchery flourished on one side of the long lake. The
other side received waste flushed by the surrounding cities and factories. Problems began around 1900
when the fish hatchery could no longer reproduce fish. Soon after, it was necessary to ban ice harvesting
from the lake. In 1940, swimming was banned because of dangerous bacteria, and in 1970, fishing had to
be stopped because of mercury and PCB contamination. The lake was effectively dead. To cite one
example, a single chemical company dumped eighty tons of mercury into the water during its run on the
coast. Recently, the New York state health department loosened restrictions slightly, and people are
advised that they may once again eat fish caught in the lake. Just as long as it’s not more than one per
month. Those who do eat more risk breakdown of their nervous system, collapse of their liver, and teeth
falling out. [5]
Like liquid poisons, solid waste can be dangerous. Paper bags degrade fairly rapidly and cleanly, but
plastic containers remain where they’re left into the indefinite future. The metal of a battery tossed into a
landfill will break down eventually, but not before dropping out poisons including cadmium. Cadmium
weakens the bones in low doses and, if exposure is high, causes death.
At the industrial waste extreme, there are toxins so poisonous they require special packaging to prevent
even minimal exposure more or less forever. The waste from nuclear power plants qualifies. So noxious
are the spent fuel rods that it’s a matter of national debate in America and elsewhere as to where they
should be stored. When the Chernobyl nuclear plant broke open in 1986, it emitted a radioactive cloud
that killed hundreds and forced the permanent evacuation of the closest town, Pripyat. Area wildlife
destruction would require an entire book to document, but as a single example, the surrounding pine
forest turned red and died after absorbing the radiation storm.
Finally, all the environmental damage listed so far has resulted from ruinous substance additions to
natural ecosystems, but environmental damage also runs in the other direction as depletion. Our cars and
factories are sapping the earth of its petroleum reserves. Minerals, including copper, are being mined
toward the point where it will become too expensive to continue digging the small amount that remains
from the ground. The United Nations estimates that fifty thousand square miles of forest are disappearing
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each year, lost to logging, conversion to agriculture, fuel wood collection by rural poor, and forest
fires. [6]
Of course, most of those tree losses can be replanted. On the other hand, species that are driven
out of existence can’t be brought back. As already noted, current rates of extinction are running far above
“background extinction” rates, which are an approximation of how many species, would disappear each
year were the rules of nature left unperturbed.
Conclusion. Technically, there’s no such thing as preserving the environment because left to its own
devices the natural world does an excellent job of wreaking havoc on itself. Disruptions including floods,
combined with wildlife battling for territory and food sources, all that continually sweeps away parts of
nature and makes room for new species and ecosystems. Still, changes wrought by the natural world tend
to be gradual and balanced, and the worry is that our industrialized lifestyle has become so powerful that
nature, at least in certain areas, will no longer be able to compensate and restore any kind of balance. That
concerns has led to both legal efforts, and ethical arguments, in favor of protecting the environment.
The Law
Legal efforts to protect the environment in the United States intensified between 1960 and 1970.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in 1970 to monitor and report on the state of
the environment while establishing and enforcing specific regulations. Well known to most car buyers as
the providers of the mile-per-gallon estimates displayed on the window sticker, the EPA is a large agency
and employs a workforce compatible with its mission, including scientists, legal staffers, and
communications experts.
Other important legal milestones in the field of environmental protection include:
The Clean Air Act of 1963 and its many amendments regulate emissions from industrial plants and
monitor air quality. One measure extends to citizens the right to sue companies for damages if they aren’t
complying with existing regulations: it effectively citizenries’ law enforcement in this area of
environmental protection.
The Clean Water Act, along with other, related legislation, regulates the quality of water in the geographic
world (lakes and rivers), as well as the water we drink and use for industrial purposes. Chemical
composition is important, and temperature also. Thermal pollution occurs when factories pour heated
water back into natural waterways at a rate sufficient to affect the ecosystem.
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The Wilderness Act, along with other legislation, establishes areas of land as protected from development.
Some zones, including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota, are reserved for minimal
human interaction (no motors are allowed); other areas are more accessible. All wilderness and national
park areas are regulated to protect natural ecosystems.
The Endangered Species Act and related measures take steps to ensure the survival of species pressed to
near extinction, especially by human intrusion. One example is the bald eagle. Subjected to hunting, loss
of habitat, and poisoning by the pesticide DDT (which caused eagle eggs to crack prematurely), a once
common species was reduced to only a few hundred pairs in the lower forty-eight states. Placed on the
endangered species list in 1967, penalties for hunting were increased significantly. Also, DDT was banned,
and subsequently the eagle made a strong comeback. It is no longer listed as endangered.
The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 requires that an environmental impact statement be
prepared for many major projects. The word environment in this case means not only the natural world
but also the human one. When a new building is erected in a busy downtown, the environmental impact
statement reports on the effect the building will have on both the natural world (how much new air
pollution will be released from increased traffic, how much water will be necessary for the building’s
plumbing, how much electricity will be used to keep the place cool in the summer) and also the civilized
one (whether there’s enough parking in the area for all the cars that will arrive, whether nearby highways
can handle the traffic and similar). Staying with the natural factors, the statement should consider
impacts—positive and negative—on the local ecosystem as well as strategies for minimizing those impacts
and some consideration of alternatives to the project. The writing and evaluation of these statements can
become sites of conflict between developers on one side and environmental protection organizations on
the other.
Two major additional points about legal approaches to the natural world should be added. First, they can
be expensive; nearly all environmental protection laws impose costs on business and, consequently, make
life for everyone more costly. When developers of downtown buildings have to create a budget for their
environmental impact statements, the expenses get passed on to the people who buy condos in the
building. There’s no doubt that banning the pesticide DDT was good for the eagle, but it made farming—
and therefore the food we eat—more expensive. Further, clean water and air stipulations don’t only affect
consumers by making products more expensive; the environmental responsibility also costs Americans
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jobs every time a factory gets moved to China or some other relatively low-regulation country. Of course,
it’s also true that, as noted earlier, around 25 percent of China’s surface water is poisonous, but for laid-off
workers in the States, it may be hard to worry so much about that.
Second, these American laws, regulations, and agencies don’t make a bit of difference in Cancun, Mexico.
Even though Cancun and America wash back and forth over each other (Cancun’s hotels were
constructed, chiefly, to host American visitors), the rights and responsibilities of legal dominion over the
environment stop and start at places where people need to show their passports. This is representative of
a larger reality: more than most issues in business ethics, arguments pitting economic and human
interests against the natural world are international in nature. The greenhouse gases emitted by cars
caught in Cancun traffic are no different, as far as the earth is concerned, from those gases produced along
clogged Los Angeles freeways.
K E Y T A K E A W A Y S
Ecosystems are natural webs of life in which the parts depend on each other for their continued survival.
In a business context, the major types of pollution include air, water, soil, and contamination associated
with highly toxic materials.
Resource depletion is a type of environmental damage.
Numerous laws regulate the condition and use of the environment in the United States.
R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S
1. What is an example of an ecosystem?
2. Explain one way that an ecosystem can resemble an economic system.
3. What are some effects of smog?
4. What’s an environmental impact statement?
5. Why are the business ethics of the environment more international in nature than many other subjects?
[1] “Cancun Tourism,” TED, Trade & Environment Database, case no. 86, accessed June 8,
2011, http://www1.american.edu/TED/cancun.htm.
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[2] Kent Holsinger, “Patterns of Biological Extinction,” lecture notes, University of Connecticut, August 31, 2009,
accessed June 8, 2011,http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/eeb310/lecture-notes/extinctions/node1.html.
[3] “Is Air Pollution Killing You?” Ivanhoe Newswire, May 2009, accessed June 8,
2011,http://www.ivanhoe.com/science/story/2009/05/572a.html.
[4] “More than 25% of China’s Surface Water Contaminated,” China Daily, July 26, 2010, accessed June 8,
2011, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-07/26/content_11051350.htm.
[5] The Upstate Freshwater Institute Onondaga Lake page, October 22, 2010, accessed June 8,
2011, http://www.upstatefreshwater.org/html/onondaga_lake.html; “2010–2011 Health Advisories: Chemicals in
Sportfish and Game,” New York State Department of Health, 2011, accessed June 8,
2011, http://static.ongov.net/WEP/wepdf/2009_AMP-
FINAL/Library/11_SupportingDocs/L11.10.11_HealthAdvisory2010-2011.pdf.
[6] Rhett A. Butler, “World Deforestation Rates and Forest Cover Statistics, 2000–2005,”Mongabay.com,
November 16, 2005, accessed June 8, 2011,http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1115-forests.html.
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14.2 Ethical Approaches to Environmental Protection
L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E S
1. Outline five attitudes toward environmental protection.
2. Consider who should pay for environmental protection and cleanup.
The Range of Approaches to Cancun
Cancun is an environmental sacrifice made in exchange for tourist dollars. The unique lagoon, for
example, dividing the hotel strip from the mainland was devastated by the project. To construct the
roadwork leading around the hotels, the original developers raised the earth level, which blocked the
ocean’s high tide from washing over into the lagoon and refreshing its waters. Quickly, the living water
pool supporting a complex and unique ecosystem clogged with algae and became a stinky bog. No one
cared too much since that was the street side, and visitors had come for the ocean.
Still, one hotel developer decided to get involved. Ricardo Legorreta who designed the Camino Real Hotel
(today named Dreams Resort) said this about his early 1970s project: “Cancun is more water than land.
The Hotel Camino Real site was originally 70 percent water. It had been filled during the urbanization
process. I wanted to return the site to its original status, so we built the guest room block on solid rock
and the public areas on piles, and then excavated what was originally the lagoon. The difference in tide
levels provides the necessary water circulation to keep the new lagoon clean.” [1]
Specific numbers aren’t available, but plainly it costs more to dig out the ground and then build on piles
than it does to just build on the ground. To save the lagoon, the owners of the Camino Real spent some
money.
Was it worth it? The answer depends initially on the ethical attitude taken toward the environment
generally; it depends on how much, and how, value is assigned to the natural world. Reasonable ethical
cases can be made for the full range of environmental protection, from none (total exploitation of the
natural world to satisfy immediate human desires) to complete protection (reserving wildlife areas for
freedom from any human interference). The main positions are the following and will be elaborated
individually:
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The environment shouldn’t be protected.
The environment should be protected in the name of serving human welfare.
The environment should be protected in the name of serving future generations’ welfare.
The environment should be protected in the name of serving animal welfare.
The environment should be protected for its own sake.
The Environment Shouldn’t Be Protected
Should individuals and businesses use the natural world for our own purposes and without concern for its
welfare or continuation? The “yes” answer traces back to an attitude called free use, which pictures the
natural world as entirely dedicated to serving immediate human needs and desires. The air and water and
all natural resources are understood as belonging to everyone in the sense that all individuals have full
ownership of, and may use, all resources belonging to them as they see fit. The air blowing above your
land and any water rolling through it are yours, and you may breathe them or drink them or dump into
them as you like. This attitude, finally, has both historical and ethical components.
The history of free use starts with the fact that the very idea of the natural world as needing protection at
all is very recent. For almost all human history, putting the words environment and protection together
meant finding ways that we could be protected from it instead of protecting it from us. This is very easy to
see along Europe’s Mediterranean coast. As opposed to Cancun where all the buildings are pushed right
up to the Caribbean and open to the water, the stone constructions of Europe’s old coastal towns are
huddled together and open away from the sea. Modern and recently built hotels obscure this to some
extent, but anyone walking from the coast back toward the city centers sees how all the old buildings turn
away from the water as though the builders feared nature, which, in fact, they did.
They were afraid because the wind and storms blowing off the sea actually threatened their existences; it
capsized their boats and sent water pouring through roofs and food supplies. Going further, not only is it
the case that until very recently nature threatened us much more than we threatened it, but in those cases
where humans did succeed in doing some damage, nature bounced right back. After a tremendously
successful fishing year, for example, the supply of food swimming off the coastlines of the Mediterranean
was somewhat depleted, but the next season things would return to normal. It’s only today, with giant
motorized boats pulling huge nets behind, that we’ve been able to truly fish out some parts of the sea. The
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larger historical point is that until, say, the nineteenth century, even if every human on the planet had
united in a project to ruin nature irrevocably, not much would’ve happened. In that kind of reality, the
idea of free use of our natural resources makes sense.
Today, at a time when our power over nature is significant, there are two basic arguments in favor of free
use:
1. The domination and progress argument
2. The geological time argument
The domination and progress argument begins by refusing to place any necessary and intrinsic value in
the natural world: there’s no autonomous worth in the water, plants, and animals surrounding us.
Because they have no independent value, those who abuse and ruin nature can’t be automatically accused
of an ethical violation: nothing intrinsically valuable has been damaged. Just as few people object when a
dandelion is pulled from a front yard, so too there’s no necessary objection to the air being ruined by our
cars.
Connected with this disavowal of intrinsic value in nature’s elements, there’s high confidence in our
ability to generate technological advances that will enable human civilization to flourish on the earth no
matter how contaminated and depleted. When we’ve drilled the last drop of the petroleum we need to
heat our homes and produce electricity to power our computers, we can trust our scientists to find new
energy sources to keep everything going. Possibly solar energy technologies will leap forward, or the long-
sought key to nuclear fission will be found in a research lab. As for worries about the loss of wildlife and
greenery, that can be rectified with genetic engineering, or by simply doing without them. Even without
human interference, species are disappearing every day; going without a few more may not ultimately be
important.
Further, it should be remembered that there are many natural entities we’re happy to do without. No one
bemoans the extinction of the virus called variola, which caused smallpox. That disease was responsible
for the death of hundreds of millions of humans, and for much of history has been one of the world’s most
terrifying scourges. In the 1970s, the virus was certified extinct by the World Health Organization. No one
misses it; not even the most devoted advocate of natural ecosystems stood up against the human abuse
and final eradication of the virus. Finally, if we can destroy one part of the natural world without remorse,
can’t that attitude be extended? No one is promoting reckless or wanton destruction, but as far as those
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parts of nature required to live well, can’t we just take what we need until it runs out and then move on to
something else?
To a certain extent, this approach is visible in Cancun, Mexico. The tourist strip has reached saturation
and the natural world in the area—at least those parts tourists won’t pay to see—has been decimated. So
what are developers doing? Moving down the coast. The new hotspot is called Playa del Carmen.
Extending south from Cancun along the shoreline, developers are gobbling up land and laying out luxury
hotels at a nonstop rate and with environmental effects frequently (not in every case) similar to those
defining Cancun. What happens when the entire area from Cancun to Chetumal is cemented over? There’s
more shoreline to be found in Belize, and on Mexico’s Pacific coast, and then down in Guatemala.
What happens when all shoreline runs out? There’s a lot of it around the world, but when the end comes,
it’ll also probably be true that we won’t need a real natural world to have a natural world, at least those
parts of it that we enjoy. Already today at Typhoon Lagoon in Disney World, six-foot waves roll down for
surfers. And visitors to the Grand Canyon face a curious choice: they can take the trouble to actually walk
out and visit the Grand Canyon, or, more comfortably, they may opt to see it in an impressive IMAX
theater presentation. There’s no reason still more aspects of the natural world, like the warm breezes and
evening perfection of Cancun, couldn’t be reproduced in a warehouse. Of course there are people who
insist that they want the real thing when it comes to nature, but there were also once people who insisted
that they couldn’t enjoy a newspaper or book if it wasn’t printed on real paper.
Next, moving on to the other of the two arguments in favor of free use, there’s the idea that we might as
well use everything without anxiety because, in the end, we really can’t seriously affect the natural world
anyway. This sounds silly at first; it seems clear that we can and do wreak havoc: species disappear and
natural ecosystems are reduced to dead zones. However, it must be noted that our human view of the
world is myopic. That’s not our fault, just an effect of the way we experience time. For us, a hundred years
is, in fact, a long time. In terms of geological time, however, the entire experience of all humanity on this
earth is just the wink of an eye. Geological time understands time’s passing not relative to human lives but
in terms of the physical history of the earth. According to that measure, the existence of the human
species has been brief, and the kinds of changes we’re experiencing in the natural world pale beside the
swings the earth is capable of producing. We worry, for example, about global warming, meaning the
earth’s temperature jumping a few degrees, and while this change may be seismically important for us, it’s
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nothing new to the earth. As Robert Laughlin, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, points out in an article
set under the provocative announcement “The Earth Doesn’t Care if You Drive a Hybrid,” six million years
ago the Mediterranean Sea went bone dry. Eighty-five million years before that there were alligators in the
Arctic, and two-hundred million years before that Europe was a desert. Comparatively, human
industrialization has changed nothing. [2]
This geological view of time cashes out as an ethical justification for free use of the natural world for a
reason nearly the opposite of the first. The argument for free use supported by convictions about
domination and progress borders on arrogance: it’s that the natural world is unimportant, and any
problems caused by our abusing it will be resolved by intelligence and technological advance.
Alternatively, and within the argument based on geological time, our lives, deeds, and abilities are so
trivial that it’s absurd to imagine that we could seriously change the flow of nature’s development even if
we tried. We could melt nuclear reactors left and right, and a hundred million years from now it wouldn’t
make a bit of difference. That means, finally, that the idea of preserving the environment isn’t nobility: it’s
vanity.
The Environment Should Be Protected in the Name of Serving Human
Welfare
The free-use argument in favor of total environmental exploitation posits no value in the natural world. In
and of itself, it’s worthless. Even if this premise is accepted, however, there may still be reason to take
steps in favor of preservation and protection. It could be that the ecosystems around us should be
safeguarded not for them, but for us. The reasoning here is that we as a society will live better and happier
when lakes are suitable for swimming, when air cleans our lungs instead of gumming them up, when a
drive on the freeway with the car window down doesn’t leave your face feeling greasy. Human happiness,
ultimately, hinges to some extent on our own natural and animal nature. We too, we must remember, are
part of the ecosystem. Many of the things we do each day—walk, breathe, find shelter from the elements—
are no different from the activities of creatures in the natural world. When that world is clean and
functioning well, consequently, we fit into it well.
Wrapping this perspective into an ethical theory, utilitarianism—the affirmation that the ethically good is
those acts increasing human happiness—functions effectively. For visitors to Cancun, it seems difficult to
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deny that their trip will be more enjoyable if the air they breathe is fresh and briny instead of stinky and
gaseous as it was in some places when the lagoon had decayed into a pestilent swamp. Understood in this
way, we could congratulate Architect Legorreta for his expensive decision to carve out a space for the tides
to reenter and refresh the inland lake. It’s not, the argument goes, that he should be thanked for rescuing
an ecosystem, but that by rescuing the ecosystem he made human life more agreeable.
Another way to justify environmental protection in the name of human and civilized life runs through a
rights-based argument. Starting from the principle of the right to pursue happiness, a case could be built
that without a flourishing natural world, the pursuit will fail. If it’s true that we need a livable
environment, one where our health—our breathing, drinking, and eating—is guaranteed, then
industrialists and resort developers who don’t ensure that their waste and contamination are controlled
aren’t just polluting; they’re violating the fundamental rights of everyone sharing the planet.
Bringing this rights-based argument to Cancun and Legorreta’s dredging of the lagoon, it’s possible to
conclude that he absorbed a pressing responsibility to do what he did: in the name of protecting the right
of others to live healthy lives, it was necessary to renew the dead water. Again, it must be emphasized that
the responsibility isn’t to the water or the animals thriving in its ecosystem. They’re irrelevant, and there’s
no obligation to protect them. What matters is human existence; the obligation is to human rights and our
dependence on the natural world to exercise those rights.
The Environment Should Be Protected in the Name of Serving Future
Generations’ Welfare
The idea that the environment should be protected so that future generations may live in it and have the
choices we do today is based on a notion of social fairness. Typically in ethics, we think of fairness in
terms of individuals. When applying for a job at a Cancun hotel, fairness is the imperative that all those
applying get equal consideration, are subjected to similar criteria for selection, and the selection is based
on ability to perform job-related duties. When, on the other hand, the principle of fairness extends to the
broad social level, what’s meant is that groups taken as a whole are treated equitably.
One hypothetical way to present this notion of intergenerational fairness with respect to the environment
and its protection is through the previously discussed notion of the veil of ignorance—that is, the idea that
you imagine yourself as removed from today’s world and then reinserted at some future point, one
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randomly assigned. You may come back tomorrow, next year, next decade, or a hundred years down the
line. If, the reasoning goes, that’s your situation, and then very possibly you’re going to urge
contemporary societies to protect the environment so that it’ll be there for you when your time comes
around, whenever that might be. Stated slightly differently, it’s a lot easier to wreck the environment when
you don’t have to think about others. Fairness, however, obligates us to think of others, including future
others, and the veil of ignorance provides one way of considering their rights on a par with the ones we
enjoy now.
What does this mean in terms of Cancun? We should enjoy paradise there, no doubt, but we should also
ensure that it’ll be as beautiful for our children (or any randomly selected future generation) as it is for us.
In this case, the re dredging of the lagoon serves that purpose. By helping maintain the status quo in
terms of the natural ecosystems surrounding the hotels, it also helps to maintain the possibility of
enjoying that section of the Caribbean into the indefinite future.
There’s also a utilitarian argument that fits underneath and justifies the position that our environment
should be protected in the name of future generations. This theory grades acts ethically in terms of their
consequences for social happiness, and with those consequences projected forward in time. To the extent
possible, the utilitarian mind-set demands that we account for the welfare of future generations when we
act today. Of course the future is an unknown, and that tends to weigh decisions toward their effects on
the present since those are more easily foreseen. Still, it’s not difficult to persuade most people that future
members of our world will be happier and their lives fuller and more rewarding if they’re born onto an at
least partially green earth.
The Environment Should Be Protected in the Name of Serving Animal
Welfare
One of the more frequently voiced lines of reasoning in favor of ecosystem preservation starts with a
fundamental shift from the previous arguments. Those arguments place all intrinsic value
in human existence: to the extent we decide to preserve the natural world, we do so because it’s good for
us. Preservation satisfies our ethical duties to ourselves or to those human generations yet to come. What
now changes is that the natural world’s creatures get endowed with a value independent of humans, and
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that value endures whether or not we enjoy or need to fit into a web of healthy, clean ecosystems. Animals
matter, in other words, regardless of whether they matter for us.
Ethically, the endowment of nonhuman animals with intrinsic worth is to treat them, to some extent, or in
some significant way, as human. This treatment is a subject of tremendous controversy, one orbiting
around the following two questions:
Are nonhuman animals worthy of moral consideration? What do they do, what qualities do they possess
that lead us to believe they should have rights and impose obligations on you and me?
Granting that nonhuman animals do hold value in themselves and impose obligations on humans by their
very existence, how far do the obligations go? If we’re given a choice on a speeding highway between
running over a squirrel and hitting a person, do we have a moral obligation to avoid the person (and run
down the squirrel)? If we do, then it seems that the intrinsic worth of an animal is less than that of a
human being, but how much less?
Questions about whether animals have rights and impose obligations are among the most important in
the field of environmental ethics. They will be explored in their own section of discussion that follows. In
this section, it will simply be accepted that nonhuman animals do, in fact, have autonomous moral
standing. It immediately follows that their protection is, to some extent, a responsibility.
In terms of an ethics of duties, the obligation to protect animal life could be conceived as a form of the
duty to beneficence, a duty to help those who we are able to aid, assuming the cost to ourselves is not
disproportionately high. Protecting animals is something we do for the same reason we protect people in
need. Alternatively, in terms of the utilitarian principle that we act to decrease suffering in the world
(which is a way of increasing happiness), the argument could be mounted that animals are, in fact,
capable of suffering, and therefore we should act to minimize that sensation just as we do in the human
realm. Finally, rights theory—the notion that we’re free and should not impinge on the freedom of
others—translates into a demand that we treat the natural world with respect and with an eye to its
preservation in order to guarantee that nonhuman animals may continue to pursue their own ends just as
we demand that we humans be allowed to pursue ours.
With the obligation for the protection of—or at least noninterference with—nonhuman animals
established, the way opens to extend the conservation to the natural world generally. Because animals
depend on their habitat to express their existence, because their instincts and needs suggest that they may
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be free only within their natural environment, the first responsibility derived from the human obligation
to animals is one to protect their wild and natural surroundings. As an important note here, that habitat—
the air all animals breathe, the water where fish swim, the earth housing burrowing animals—is not
protected for its own sake, only as an effect of recognizing the creatures of the natural realm as dignified
and worthy of our deference.
What does this dignity conferred on animal life mean for Cancun? The dredging and revivifying of the
lagoon by Legorreta fulfills an obligation under this conception of the human relation to the natural
world. It’s a different obligation from those developed in the previous cases, however. Before, the lagoon
was cleansed in the name of improving the Cancun experience for vacationers; here, it’s cleansed so that it
may once again support the land and aquatic life that once called the place home. As for whether that
improves the vacation experience, there’s no reason to ask; it’s only necessary to know that saving animals
probably requires saving their home.
The Entire Environmental Web Should Be Protected for Its Own Sake
The environment as a whole, the total ecosystem including all animal and plant life on Earth—along with
the air, water, and soil supporting existence—should be protected according to a number of ethical
arguments:
The least difficult to persuasively make is the case that the obligation flows from human welfare: we’re
happier when our planet is healthy.
It’s more difficult, but still very possible, to make a reasonable case that the obligation to protection
attaches to the autonomous value and rights of nonhuman animals. In order to protect all of them, the
reasoning goes, we should preserve all elements of the natural world to the extent possible because we
can’t be sure which ones may, in fact, play an important role in the existence of one or another kind of
creature.
Finally, the most difficult case to make is that humans are obligated to protect the total environment—all
water and air, every tree and animal—because all of it and every single part holds autonomous value. This
Earth-wide value translates into an Earth-wide obligation: the planet—understood as the network of life
happening above and under its surface—becomes something like a single living organism we humans
must protect.
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What distinguishes the third argument from the previous two is that we don’t save the greater natural
ecosystem in the name of something else (human welfare or habitat preservation for nonhuman animals)
but for itself.
It’s easy to trivialize the view that every element of the natural world demands respect and therefore some
degree of protection. Do we really want to say that a child experimenting out in the driveway with worms,
or pulling up plants to see the roots is failing a moral obligation to the living world? What about the
coconut trees felled to make room for Cancun’s hotels? Perhaps if they were unique trees, or if a certain
species of bird depended on precisely those limbs and no others for its survival, but do we want to go
further and say that the standard trees—a few hundred out of millions in the world—should give
developers pause before the cement trucks come wheeling in? For many, it will be easier to conclude that
if a good project is planned—if there’s money to be earned and progress to be made—then we can cut
down a few anonymous trees that happen to be standing in the way and get on with our human living.
On the other hand, sitting on the sand in Cancun, it’s difficult to avoid sensing a happening majesty: not a
reason to pull out your camera and snap, but a living experience that can only be had by a natural being
participating, breathing air as the wind blows across the beach, or swimming in the crisp water. There
may be a kind of aesthetic imperative here, a coherent demand for respect that we feel with our own
natural bodies. The argument isn’t that the entire natural ecosystem should be preserved because it feels
good for us to jump in the ocean water—it feels good to jump in the shower too—the idea is that through
our bodies we experience a substance and value of nature that requires our deference. Called
the aesthetic argument in favor of nature’s dignity, and consequently in favor of the moral obligation to
protect it, there may be no proper explanation or reasoning, it may only be something that you know if
you’re in the right place at the right time, like Cancun in the morning.
The response to the aesthetic argument is that we can’t base ethics on a feeling.
If We Decide to Protect the Environment, Who Pays?
Much of the stress applied to, and the destruction wrought on the environment around Cancun could be
reversed. That costs money, though. Determining exactly how much is a task for biologists and
economists to work out. The question for ethical consideration is, who should pay? These are three basic
answers:
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1. Those who contaminated the natural world
2. Those who enjoy the natural world
3. Those who are most able
The answer that the costs should be borne by those who damaged nature in the first place means sending
the bill to developers and resort owners, to all those whose ambition to make money on tourism got roads
paved, forests cleared, and foundations laid. Intuitively, placing the obligation for environmental cleanup
on developers may make the most sense, and in terms of ethical theory, it fits in well with the basic duty to
reparation, the responsibility to compensate others when we harm them. In this case, the harm has been
done to those others who enjoy and depend on the natural world, and one immediate way to compensate
them is to repair the damage. A good model for this could be Legorreta’s work, the expense taken to raise
a portion of a hotel and so once again allow tide water to freshen the lagoon. Similar steps could be taken
to restore parts of the ruined coral reef and to replant the forest behind the hotel area.
The plan makes sense, but there’s a glaring problem: times change. Back when Cancun was originally
being laid out in the 1960s, ecological concerns were not as visible and widely recognized as they are
today. That doesn’t erase the fact that most hotel companies in Cancun laid waste to whatever stood in the
way of their building, but it does allow them to note that they are being asked to pay today for actions that
most everyone thought were just fine back when they were done. It’s not clear, finally, how fair it is to ask
developers to pay for a cleanup that no one envisioned would be necessary back when the construction
initiated.
The proposal that those who enjoy and depend on the natural world should bear primary responsibility
for protecting and renewing it also makes good sense. This reasoning is to some extent implemented in
America’s natural parks where fees are charged for entry. Those revenues go to support the work of the
forestry service that’s required to ensure that visitors to those parks—and the infrastructure they need to
enjoy their time there—don’t do harm to the ecosystems they’re coming to see, and also to ensure that
harm done by others (air pollution, for example, emitted by nearby factories) is cleansed by nature’s
organic processes.
On a much larger scale, a global one, this logic is also displayed in some international attempts to limit the
emission of greenhouse gasses. The specific economics and policy are complicated and involve financial
devices including carbon credits and similar, but at bottom what’s happening is that governments are
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getting together and deciding that we all benefit from (or even need) reduced emissions of waste into the
air. From there, attempts are made to negotiate contributions various countries can make to the reduction
effort. As for the cost, most economists agree that the expense of pollution control measures will, for the
most part, be passed along as hikes in the cost of consumer goods. Everyone, in other words, will pay,
which matches up with the affirmation that everyone benefits.
Finally, the response that those most able to pay should bear the brunt of the cost for protecting the
natural world is a political as much as an environmental posture. One possibility would be a surtax levied
on wealthy members of society, with the money channeled toward environmental efforts. This strategy
may find a solid footing on utilitarian grounds where acts benefitting the overall welfare remain good even
if they’re burdensome or unfair to specific individuals. What would be necessary is to demonstrate that
the sum total of human (and, potentially, nonhuman animal) happiness would be increased by more than
the accumulated displeasure of those suffering the tax increase.
K E Y T A K E A W A Y S
The attitude that the environment shouldn’t be protected has both historical and ethical roots.
Confidence in the human ability to control the environment diminishes concerns about protecting its
current state.
The power of nature viewed over the very long term diminishes concerns about protecting its current
state.
Environmental protection in the name of serving human welfare values the natural world because it’s
valuable for us.
Environmental protection in the name of serving future generations’ welfare derives from a notion of
social fairness.
Environmental protection in the name of serving animal welfare connects with a notion of moral
autonomy in nonhuman animals.
Environmental protection for its own sake values the entire set of the world’s ecosystems.
If the environment is protected, the costs may be made the responsibility of various parties.
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R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S
1. Briefly, what is the history of the free-use attitude toward the natural world?
2. How can technology make environmental protection a wasted effort?
3. How can the idea of geological time become an argument against taking expensive steps to protect the
natural world?
4. What are some reasons why our ethical obligations to ourselves may lead us to protect the natural
world?
5. What is the difference between protecting the natural world because we humans are valuable, and
because animals are valuable?
6. What kind of experiences with nature may result in the sensation that, as an interdependent whole, the
natural world holds value?
7. If the decision is made to protect nature, who are some individuals or groups that might be asked to pay
the cost?
[1] Ricardo Legorreta, Wayne Attoe, Sydney Brisker, and Hal Box, The Architecture of Ricardo Legorreta (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1990), 108.
[2] George Will, “The Earth Doesn’t Care: About What Is Done to or for It,” Newsweek, September 12, 2010,
accessed June 8, 2011,http://www.newsweek.com/2010/09/12/george-will-earth-doesn-t-care-what-is-done-to-
it.html?from=rss.
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14.3 Three Models of Environmental Protection for Businesses
L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E
1. Outline three business responses to environmental responsibility.
The Role of Businesses in Environmental Protection
Protecting the environment is itself a business, and many organizations, especially nonprofits, take that as
their guiding purpose. The World Wildlife Fund, the Audubon Society, and National Geographic
exemplify this. Their direct influence over the natural world, however, is slight when compared against all
the globe’s for-profit companies chugging away in the name of earning money. Whether the place is
Cancun, or China, or the United States, the condition of the natural world depends significantly on what
profit-making companies are doing, the way they’re working, the kinds of goods they’re producing, and
the attitude they’re taking toward the natural world. Three common attitudes are
1. accelerate and innovate,
2. monetize and count,
3. express corporate responsibility.
4.
Business and Environmental Protection: Accelerate and Innovate
There’s a subtle difference between environmental conservation and protection. Conservation means
leaving things as they are. Protection opens the possibility of changing the natural world in the name of
defending it. One way for a business to embrace the protection of nature is through technological advance.
New discoveries, the hope is, can simultaneously allow people to live better, and live better with the
natural world. Looking at a stained paradise like Cancun, the attitude isn’t so much worry that we’re
ruining the world and won’t be able to restore a healthy balance, it’s more industrially optimistic: by
pushing the accelerator, by innovating faster we’ll resolve the very environmental problems we’ve created.
Examples of the progressive approach to environmental protection—as opposed to the conservative one—
include solar and wind power generation. Both are available to us only because of the explosion of
technology and knowledge the industrialized, contaminating world allows. Because of them, we can today
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imagine a world using energy at current rates without doing current levels of environmental damage.
Here’s a statement of that aim from a wind power company’s web page: “Our goal has always been to
produce a utility-scale wind turbine that does not need subsidies in order to compete in electricity
markets.” [1]
The idea, in other words, is that electricity produced by this company’s windmills will be as cheap (or
cheaper) than that produced from fossil fuels, including coal. To reach that point, the development of very
strong yet lightweight materials has been necessary, along with other technological advances. If they
continue, it may be that American energy consumption can remain high, while pollution emitted from
coal-burning electricity plants diminishes. One point, finally, that the wind turbine company web page
doesn’t underline quite so darkly is that they’ll make a lot of money along the way if everything goes
according to plan. This incentive is also typical of an accelerate-and-innovate approach: not only should
industrialization go forward faster in the name of saving the environment, so too should
entrepreneurialism and profit.
In broad terms, the business attitude toward employing innovation to protect the environment
acknowledges that human activity on earth has done environmental damage, and that matters. The
damage is undesirable and should be reversed. The way to reverse, however, isn’t to go backward by doing
things like reducing our energy use to previous levels. Instead, we keep doing what we’re doing, just
faster. The same industrialization that caused the problem will pull us out.
Business and Environmental Protections: Monetize and Count
A cost-benefit analysis is, theoretically, a straightforward way of determining whether an action should be
undertaken. The effort and expense of doing something is toted on one side, and the benefits received are
summed on the other. If the benefits are greater than the costs, we go ahead; if not, we don’t. Everyone
performs cost-benefit analyses all the time. At dinner, children decide whether a dessert brownie is worth
the cost of swallowing thirty peas. Adults decide whether the fun of a few beers tonight is worth a
hangover tomorrow or, more significantly, whether getting to live in one of the larger homes farther out of
town is worth an extra half-hour in the car driving to work every morning.
Setting a cost-benefit analysis between a business and the environment means adding the costs of
eliminating pollution on one side and weighing it against the benefits of a cleaner world. The ethical
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theory underneath this balancing approach to business and nature is utilitarianism. The right act is the
one most increasing society’s overall happiness (or most decreasing unhappiness), with happiness
measured in this case in terms of the net benefits a society receives after the costs of an action have been
deducted.
The most nettlesome problem for businesses adopting a cost-benefit approach to managing
environmental protection is implementation. It’s hard to know exactly what all the costs are on the
business side, and what all the benefits are on nature’s side. Then, even if all the costs and benefits are
confidently listed, it’s equally (or more) difficult to weigh them against each other. According to a report
promulgated by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, North Carolina’s coal-fired electricity plants
could install smokestack scrubbers to significantly reduce contaminating emissions. The cost would be
$450 million. The benefits received as a result of the cleaner air would total $3.5 billion. [2]
This seems like
a no-brainer. The problem is that when you dig a bit into the report’s details, it’s not entirely clear that the
benefits derived from cleaner air add up to $3.5 billion. More troubling, it looks like it’s hard to put any
price tag at all on them. Here are a few examples:
According to the report, “It is estimated that pollution from power plants triggers more than 200,000
asthma attacks across the state each year and more than 1,800 premature deaths.” The word estimated is
important. Further, how do you put a dollar total on an asthma attack or a death?
According to the report, “One should be able to see out 93 miles on an average day in the Smoky
Mountains, but now air pollution has reduced this to an average of 22 miles.” How do you put a dollar
total on a view?
According to the report, “Air pollution contributes to significant declines in populations of dogwood,
spruce, fir, beech, and other tree species.” What is “significant?” What’s the dollar value of a dogwood? [3]
The list of items goes on, but the point is clear. A cost-benefit analysis makes excellent sense in theory, but
it’s as difficult to execute as it is to assign numbers to human experiences. If the attempt is nonetheless
made, the technical term for the assigning is monetization.
A final set of hurtles to clear on the way to implementing a cost-benefit approach to business and the
environment involves formalizing mechanisms for paying the costs. Two common mechanisms are
regulation and incentives.
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Regulations are imposed by federal or local governments and come in various forms. Most directly, and
staying with electrical plants in Carolina, the plants could be required to install smokestack scrubbers.
Costs of the installation would, to some significant extent, be passed on to consumers as rate hikes, and
the benefits of cleaner air would be enjoyed by all. It’s worth noting here that the contamination
producers in question—coal-burning electricity plants—are pretty much stuck where they are in
geographic terms. You can’t produce electricity in China and sell it in the States. Other kinds of
businesses, however, may be able to avoid regulations by packing up and heading elsewhere. This, of
course, complicates the already knotted attempt to tote up the benefits and costs of environmental
protection.
A more flexible manner of regulating air and other types of pollution involves the sale of permits. There
are multiple ways of mounting a permit trade, but as a general sketch, the government sets an upper limit
to the amount of air pollution produced by all industry, and sells (or gives) permits to specific operating
businesses. In their turn, these permits may be bought and sold. So an electric company may find that it
makes economic sense to install scrubbers (limiting its pollution output) and then sell the remaining
pollution amount on its license to another company that finds the cost of limiting its emissions to be very
high. One advantage of this approach is that, while it does limit total contamination, it allows for the fact
that it’s easier for some polluters than others to cut back.
As opposed to regulations that essentially force businesses to meet social pollution goals, incentives seek
the same results cooperatively. For example, tax incentives could be offered for environmental protection
efforts; money paid for the scrubbers a company places in their smokestacks may be deducted from taxes
at a very high rate. Similarly, matching funds may be offered by government agencies: for every dollar the
company spends, the government—which in this case means you and I and everyone who pays taxes—
chips in one also.
Alternatively, government agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency may provide public
recognition to anti-contamination efforts undertaken by a business, and in the hands of a strong
marketing department those awards may be converted into positive public relations, new consumers, and
extra profits that offset the original pollution control costs.
Specific awards tied to government agencies may not even be necessary; the incentive can be drawn from
a broad range of sources. A good example comes from the Washington Post. A long and generally quite
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positive news story recounts Wal-Mart’s efforts to encourage suppliers in China to increase energy
efficiency while decreasing their pollution output. Basically, Wal-Mart told suppliers that they need to
clean up or they’ll get replaced. According to the account, not only is the effort bearing fruit, but it’s
working better than government regulations designed to achieve similar ends: “In many cases, Wal-Mart
is first trying to bring firms up to government standards. Suppliers may not care about government fines,
but they care about orders from the buyers.” [4]
As for Wal-Mart, their cause is served by the free publicity of the story when it’s distributed to almost a
million newspaper readers in the Washington, DC, area and then projected broadly on the Internet.
Further down the line, the good publicity ended up getting cited here. Going back to the specific
newspaper story, it finishes with a clear acknowledgment of the public relations dynamic. These are the
article’s last lines: “Wal-Mart sees this not just as good practice but also good marketing. ‘We hope to get
more customers,’ said Barry Friedman, vice president for corporate affairs in Beijing. ‘We’re not doing it
solely out of the goodness of our hearts.’” [5]
One notable problem with the incentive approach is identical to its strength: since participation is
voluntary, some heavy polluters may choose not to get involved.
As a final point about incentives, many industrial plants already receive incentives to not protect the
environment. To the extent they’re allowed to simply jet sulfur and other contamination into the air, they
are, in effect, forcing society generally to pay part of their cost of production. Every time someone in
Carolina falls ill with an asthma attack, the consequences are suffered by that individual while the profits
from electricity sales go to the electric company. As previously discussed, these externalities—these costs
of production borne by third parties—actually encourage businesses to follow any route possible to make
outsiders pay the costs of their operations. One route that’s frequently possible, especially for heavy
industry, involves letting others deal with their runoff and waste.
Business and Environmental Protections: Corporate Social Responsibility
The third posture an organization may adopt toward environmental protection falls under the heading of
corporate social responsibility. The attitude here is that companies, especially large, public corporations,
should humanize their existences: an attempt should be made to see the corporation, in a certain sense, as
an individual person. Instead of being a mindless machine built to stamp out profits, the business is re-
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envisioned as a seat of economic and moral responsibility. Responding to ethical worries isn’t someone
else’s concern (say, the government’s, which acts by imposing regulations), instead, large companies
including Wal-Mart take a leading role in addressing ethical issues.
The Washington Post’s flattering presentation of Wal-Mart in China fits well here. The story actually
presents Wal-Mart as transitioning from a vision of itself as a pure profit enterprise to one exercising
corporate citizenship. Originally,
Wal-Mart only cared about price and quality, so that encouraged suppliers to race to the
bottom on environmental standards. They could lose contracts because competition was so
fierce on price.
Now, however,
Wal-Mart held a conference in Beijing for suppliers to urge them to pay attention not only to
price but also to “sustainability,” which has become a touchstone. [6]
Sustainability means acting to protect the environment and the people surrounding an operation so that
they may continue to contribute to the profit-making enterprise. As a quick example, a logging operation
that clear-cuts forests isn’t sustainable: when all the trees are gone, there’s no way for the company to
make any more money. Similarly in human terms, companies depending on manual labor need their
employees to be healthy. If a factory’s air pollution makes everyone sick, no one will be able to come in to
work.
For Wal-Mart in China, one step toward sustainability involved energy efficiency. A supplier installed
modern shrink-wrapping machines to replace work previously done by people wielding over-the-counter
hair dryers. In theoretical terms at least, the use of less energy will help the supplier continue to produce
even as worldwide petroleum supplies dwindle and energy costs increase. Steps were also taken, as the
newspaper story notes, to limit water pollution: “Lutex says it treats four tons of wastewater that it used to
dump into the municipal sewage line. That water was supposed to be treated by the city, but like three-
quarters or more of China’s wastewater, it almost certainly wasn’t.” [7]
More examples of Wal-Mart suppliers making environmentally conscious decisions dot the newspaper
story, and in every case these actions may be understood as serving the long-term viability of the
supplier’s operations.
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Stakeholder theory is another way of presenting corporate social responsibility. The idea here is that
corporate leaders must make decisions representing the interests not only of shareholders (the
corporation’s owners) but also of all those who have a stake in what the enterprise is doing: the company
exists for their benefit too. Along these lines, Wal-Mart encouraged farmers in China to abandon the use
of toxic pesticides. The corporation contracted with farmers under the condition that they use only
organic means to kill pests and then allowed their products to be sold with a label noting their Wal-Mart-
confirmed clean production. The real lives of locals who eat that food and live on the now less-
contaminated land are markedly improved. As another farming-related example of dedication to the well-
being of the Chinese making up their manufacturing base, Wal-Mart sought “to help hundreds of small
farmers build rudimentary greenhouses, made of wood and plastic sheeting, in which they grow oranges
in midwinter to sell to Wal-Mart’s direct farm program. Zhang Fengquan is one of those farmers; he
gathers more than three tons of nectarines from more than 400 trees in his greenhouse. Asked what he
did during the winter before the greenhouse was built, he said he worked as a seasonal laborer. Or played
the popular Chinese board game mah-jongg.” [8]
In both cases, Wal-Mart is not simply abandoning its workers (or its suppliers’ workers) once they punch
out. As stakeholders in the company, Wal-Mart executives feel a responsibility to defend employees’ well-
being just as they feel a responsibility to bring good products to market in the name of profit.
The fact that Wal-Mart’s recent actions in China can be presented as examples of a corporation expressing
a sense of responsibility for the people and their natural world that goes beyond immediate profit doesn’t
mean that profit disappears from the equation. Shareholders are stakeholders too. And while corporate
attitudes of social responsibility may well result in an increasingly protected environment, and while that
protection may actually help the bottom line in some cases, there’s no guarantee that the basic economic
tension between making money and environmental welfare will be resolved.
Conclusion. Businesses can react to a world of environmental concern by trusting in technological
innovation, by trusting in governmental regulation, and by trusting in a concept of corporate
responsibility. It is currently uncertain which, if any, of these postures will most effectively respond to
society’s environmental preoccupations.
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K E Y T A K E A W A Y S
One business response to concerns about the environment is to participate in the process of
technological innovation to produce cleaner, more efficient ways of living.
One business response to concerns about the environment is to participate in, and act on cost-benefit
studies of environmental protection.
One business response to concerns about the environment is to express corporate responsibility: to
make the business a seat of economic and ethical decisions.
R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S
1. What’s the difference between environmental protection and environmental conservation?
2. How has industrialization caused environmental problems? How can it resolve those problems?
3. What is a cost-benefit analysis?
4. With respect to the environment, how can a cost-benefit analysis be used to answer questions about
business and environmental protection?
5. What is practical problem with the execution of a cost-benefit analysis strategy for responding to
environmental problems?
6. What’s the difference between a corporation guided by profit and one guided by a sense of social
responsibility?
7. Why might a stakeholder theory of corporate decision making be good for the environment?
[1] The Wind Turbine Company home page, accessed June 8, 2011,http://www.windturbinecompany.com.
[2] “The North Carolina Clean Smokestacks Plan,” Environmental Defense Fund, March 2001, accessed June 8,
2011, http://apps.edf.org/documents/700_NCsmokestacks.PDF.
[3] “The North Carolina Clean Smokestacks Plan,” Environmental Defense Fund, March 2001, accessed June 8,
2011, http://apps.edf.org/documents/700_NCsmokestacks.PDF.
[4] Steve Mufson, “Wal-Mart Presses Vendors in China to Meet Higher Standards,” Washington Post, February 26,
2010, accessed June 8, 2011,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603339_pf.html.
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[5] Steve Mufson, “Wal-Mart Presses Vendors in China to Meet Higher Standards,” Washington Post, February 26,
2010, accessed June 8, 2011,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603339_pf.html.
[6] Steve Mufson, “Wal-Mart Presses Vendors in China to Meet Higher Standards,” Washington Post, February 26,
2010, accessed June 8, 2011,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603339_pf.html.
[7] Steve Mufson, “Wal-Mart Presses Vendors in China to Meet Higher Standards,” Washington Post, February 26,
2010, accessed June 8, 2011,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603339_pf.html.
[8] Steve Mufson, “Wal-Mart Presses Vendors in China to Meet Higher Standards,” Washington Post, February 26,
2010, accessed June 8, 2011,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2010/02/26/AR2010022603339_pf.html.
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14.4 Animal Rights
L E A R N I N G O B J E C T I V E S
1. Elaborate arguments in favor of and against the proposition that animals have ethical rights.
2. Distinguish questions about animal rights from ones about animal suffering.
Do Animals Have Rights?
Were these a textbook in environmental ethics, two further questions would be added to this subsection’s
title: which rights, which animals? It’s clear that chimps and dolphins are different from worms and, even
lower, single-cell organisms. The former give coherent evidence of having some level of conscious
understanding of their worlds; the latter seem to be little more than reactionary vessels: they get a
stimulus, they react, and that’s it. Questions about where the line should be drawn between these two
extremes, and by what criteria, fit within a more specialized study of the environment. In business ethics,
attention fixes on the larger question of whether animals can be understood as possessing ethical rights as
we customarily understand the term.
There are two principal arguments in favor of understanding at least higher-order nonhuman animals as
endowed with rights:
1. The cognitive awareness and interest argument
2. The suffering argument
And there are three arguments against:
1. The lack of expression argument
2. The absence of duties argument
3. The anthropomorphism suspicion argument
The cognitive awareness and interest argument in favor of concluding that animals do have ethical
rights begins by accumulating evidence that nonhuman animals are aware of what’s going on around
them and do in fact have an interest in how things go. As for showing that animals are aware and
interested, in higher species evidence comes from what animals do. Most dogs learn in some sense the
rules of the house; they squeal when kicked and (after a few occurrences) tend to avoid doing whatever it
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was that got them the boot. Analogously, anyone who’s visited Sea World has seen dolphins respond to
orders, and seemingly understand that responding well is in their interest because they get a fish to eat
afterward.
If these deductions of animal awareness and interest are on target, the way opens to granting the animals
an autonomous moral value and standing. Maybe their ethical value should be inferior to humans who
demonstrate sophisticated understanding of their environment, themselves, and their interests, but any
understanding at all does bring animals into the realm of ethics because determinations about whose
interests should be served in any particular situation are what ethical discussions concern. The reason we
have ethics is to help those who have specific interests have them satisfied in ways that don’t interfere
with others and their attempts to satisfy their distinct interests. So if we’re going to have ethical principles
at all, then they should apply to dogs and dolphins because they’re involved in the messy conflicts about
who gets what in the world.
Putting the same argument slightly differently, when the owner of a company decides how much of the
year-end profits should go to employees as bonuses, that’s ethics because the interests of the owner and
the employees are being weighed. So too when decisions are made at Sea World about how often and how
intensely animals should be put to work in entertainment programs: the interests of profits (and human
welfare) are being weighed against the interests of individual dolphins. As soon as that happens, the
dolphins are granted an ethical standing.
The suffering argument in favor of concluding that animals do have ethical rights fits neatly inside
utilitarian theory. Within this ethical universe, the reason we have ethical rules is to maximize happiness
and minimize suffering. So the first step to take here is to determine whether dogs and similar animals do,
in fact, suffer. Of course no dog complains with words, but no baby does either, and no one doubts that
babies suffer when, for example, they’re hungry (and whining). When dogs would be expected to suffer,
when they get slapped in the snout, they too exhibit clear signs of distress. Further, biological studies have
shown that pain-associated elements of some animal nervous systems resemble the human version. Of
course dogs may not suffer on the emotional level (if you separate a male and female pair, there may not
be any heartbreak), and it’s true that absolute proof remains elusive, but for many observers there’s good
evidence that some animals do, in fact, feel pain. If, then, it’s accepted that animals suffer, they ought to
be included in our utilitarian considerations by definition because the theory directs us to act in ways that
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maximize happiness and minimize suffering. It should be noted that the theory can be adjusted to include
only human happiness and suffering, but there’s no necessary reason for that, and as long as there’s not,
the establishment of animal suffering is enough to make a reasonable case that they are entities within the
ethical world, and ones that require respect.
On the other side, the arguments against granting animals a moral standing in the world begin with
the lack of expression argument. Animals, the reasoning goes, may display behaviors indicating an
awareness of the world and the ability to suffer, but that’s not enough to merit autonomous moral
standing. To truly have rights, they must be claimed. An explicit and demonstrated awareness must exist
of what ethics are, and why rules for action are attached to them. Without that, what separates animals
from a sunflower? Like dogs, sunflowers react to their environment; they bend and twist to face the sun.
Further, like dogs, sunflowers betray signs of suffering: when they don’t get enough water they shrivel.
Granting, finally, animals rights based on their displaying some reactions to their world isn’t enough to
earn a moral identity. Or if it is, then we end up in a silly situation where we have to grant sunflowers
moral autonomy. Finally, because animals can’t truly explain morality and demand rights, they have
none.
Another way to deny animal rights runs through the absence of duties argument. Since animals don’t
have duties, they can’t have rights. All ethics, the argument goes, is a two-way street. To have rights you
must also have responsibilities; to claim protection against injury from others, you must also display
consideration before injuring others. The first question to ask, consequently, in trying to determine
whether animals should have rights is whether they have or could have responsibilities. For the most part,
the answer seems to lean toward no. Were a bear to escape its enclosure in the zoo and attack a harmless
child, few would blame the bear in any moral sense; almost no one would believe the animal was guilty of
anything other than following its instincts. People don’t expect wild animals to distinguish between their
own interest and instinct on one side, and doing what’s right on the other. We don’t even expect that
they can do that, and if they can’t, then they can’t participate in an ethical world any more than trees and
other natural creatures that go through every day pursuing their own survival and little more.
The last argument against granting moral autonomy or value to animals is a suspicion of
anthropomorphism. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human qualities to nonhuman things.
When we look at dogs and cats at home, or chimpanzees on TV, it’s difficult to miss the human
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resemblance, the blinking, alert eyes, and the legs stretching after a nap, the howls when you accidentally
step on a tail, the hunger for food, the thirst and need to drink. In all these ways, common animals are
very similar to humans. Given these indisputable similarities, it’s easy to imagine that others must exist
also. If animals look like we do (eyes, mouth, and nose), and if they eat and drink as we do, it’s natural to
assume they feel as we do: they suffer sadness and boredom; they need affection and are happy being
cuddled. And from there it’s natural to imagine that they think as we do, too. Not on the same level of
sophistication, but, yes, they feel loyalty and experience similar inclinations. All this is false reasoning,
however. Just because something looks human on the outside doesn’t mean it experiences some kind of
human sentiments on the inside. Dolls, for example, look human but feel nothing.
Transferring this possibility of drawing false conclusions from superficial resemblances over to the
question about animal rights, the suspicion is that people are getting fooled. Animals may react in ways
that look like pain to us but aren’t pain to them. Animals may appear to need affection and construct
relationships tinted with loyalty and some rudimentary morality, but all that may be just us imposing our
reality where it doesn’t actually exist. If that’s what’s happening, then animals shouldn’t have rights
because all the qualities those rights are based on—having interests, feeling pain and affection—are
invented for them by us.
Corresponding with this argument, it’s hard not to notice how quickly we rush to the defense of animals
that look cute and vaguely human, but few seem very enthusiastic about helping moles and catfish.
Dividing Questions about Animal Rights from Ones about Animal Suffering
The debate about whether animals should be understood as possessing rights within the ethical universe
is distinct from the one about whether they should be subjected to suffering. If animals do have rights,
then it quickly follows that their suffering should be objectionable. Even if animals aren’t granted any kind
of autonomous ethical existence, however, there remains a debate about the extent to which their
suffering should be considered acceptable.
Assuming some nonhuman animals do, in fact, suffer, there are two major business-related areas where
the suffering is especially notable:
Research
Consumer goods
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The case of research—especially medical and drug development—provides some obvious justification for
making animals suffer. One example involves a jaw implant brought to market by the firm Vitek. After
implantation in human patients, the device fragmented, causing extensive and painful problems. Later
studies indicated that had the implant been tested in animals first, the defect would’ve been discovered
and the human costs and pain avoided. [1]
From here, it’s easy to form an argument that if significant
human suffering can be avoided by imposing on animals, then the route should be followed. Certainly
many would be persuaded if it could be proven that the net animal suffering would be inferior to that
caused in humans. (As an amplifying note, some make the case that testing on humans can be justified
using the same reasoning: if imposing significant suffering on a few subjects will later help many cure a
serious disease, then the action should be taken.)
The case of animal testing in the name of perfecting consumer goods is less easily defended. A New York
Times story chronicles a dispute between the Perdue chicken company and a group of animal rights
activists. The activists got enough money together to purchase a newspaper ad decrying poultry farm
conditions. It portrayed chickens as crowded together so tightly that they end up fiercely attacking and
eating each other. Even when not fighting, they wallow in disease and convulse in mass
hysteria. [2]
Though Perdue denied the ad’s claims, many believe that animals of all kinds are subjected to
extreme pain in the name of producing everything from cosmetics, to dinner, to Spanish bullfights. When
animals are made to suffer for human comfort or pleasure—whether the result is nice makeup, or a tasty
veal dish, or an enthralling bullfight—two arguments quickly arise against subjecting animals to the
painful treatment. The utilitarian principle that pain in the world should be minimized may be applied.
Also, a duty to refrain from cruelty may be cited and found persuasive.
K E Y T A K E A W A Y S
Cognitive awareness and directed interest by animals may be sufficient to grant them autonomous
ethical rights.
Accepting that animals suffer may be sufficient to grant them autonomous ethical rights.
The fact that animals do not explicitly claim ethical rights may be sufficient to deny them those rights.
The fact that animals don’t have duties may be sufficient to deny them ethical rights.
Anthropomorphism may lead to erroneously seeing animals as possessing autonomous ethical value.
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The question about whether animal treatment causing suffering is ethically acceptable may be managed
independently of the question about whether animals possess rights.
R E V I E W Q U E S T I O N S
1. What are the basic steps of the cognitive awareness and interest argument?
2. What are the basic steps of the suffering argument?
3. What are the basic steps of the lack of expression argument?
4. What are the basic steps of the absence of duties argument?
5. What are the basic steps of the anthropomorphism suspicion argument?
6. In ethical terms, how is animal suffering for research reasons distinct from the suffering of a Spanish
bullfight?
[1] Lauren Myers, “Animal Testing Necessary in Medical Research,” Daily Wildcat, November 6, 2007, accessed
June 8, 2011, http://wildcat.arizona.edu/2.2255/animal-testing-necessary-in-medical-research-1.169288.
[2] Barnaby Feder, “Pressuring Perdue,” New York Times, November 26, 1989, accessed June 8,
2011, http://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/26/magazine/pressuring- perdue.html.
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14.5 Case Studies
Yahoo! Answers: Why Should We Save the Planet?
Some people argue that there’s no ethical requirement to protect the environment because the natural
world has no intrinsic value. Against that ethical posture, here are four broad justifications for
environmental protection. Each begins with a distinct and fundamental evaluation:
1. The environment should be protected in the name of serving human welfare, which is intrinsically
valuable.
2. The environment should be protected in the name of serving future generations because they’re valuable
and merit intergenerational fairness.
3. The environment should be protected to serve animal welfare because there’s an independent value in the
existence and lives of animals.
4. The entire environmental web should be protected for its own sake because the planet’s collection of
ecosystems is intrinsically valuable.
On a Yahoo! forum page, a student named redbeard_90 posts the question “why should we save the
planet?” and partially explains this way: “With the entire constant talk of ‘saving the planet’ and stopping
global warming, should we actually try to stop it? Perhaps in a way, this is humans transforming the
planet to better suit us?” [1]
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Q U E S T I O N S
1. It sounds like redbeard_90 might think that humans doing damage to the environment is OK
because it’s just a symptom of “humans transforming the planet to better suit us.”
o Where is redbeard_90 placing value?
o What might redbeard_90’s attitude be toward the free use conception of the human relation
with the environment?
o What is the domination and progress argument against worrying about saving the planet? How
could that argument fit together with what redbeard_90 wrote?
2. The response by a woman named Super Nova includes this reasoning: “We should try to save
the planet because there would be less people with health problems. Did you know that there
are more people with respiratory problems because of all the air pollution contributing to it?
Also, we should think about future generations on Earth and how it would affect our future.
Also, global warming is affecting our essential natural resources like food and lakes are drying up
and it is causing more droughts in the world.”
The overall tone of her answer is strong with conviction.
o It sounds like Super Nova wants to save the planet. What values sit underneath her desire? Why
does she think environmental protection is important?
o Does it sound like she believes nature in itself has value? Why or why not?
3. The poster named Luke writes an animated response, including these sentences:
The first thing we need to do is help make some changes in our national mind set from
one that lets us believe that our earth can recover from anything, to one that lets us
believe that our earth could use a little help.
Developing cleaner ways to produce electricity is not going to hurt a thing; if it does
nothing but make the air we breathe cleaner it works for me.
Developing alternative fuels to power our transportation needs, again won’t hurt a thing,
reduce the demand for oil you reduce the price we pay for it, I think everyone can say
“that works for me” to this.
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I’m a global warming advocate but, not because of some unfounded fear of Doomsday
but (as you may have guessed by now) because it won’t hurt a thing to help our earth
recover from years of industrial plunder.
o Some people are worried about human welfare, some people care a lot about the welfare of the
planet, some people mix a little of both. Where would you say Luke comes down? Justify by
specific reference to his words.
o Some people who are concerned about the earth’s welfare are most interested in helping
nonhuman animals; others are more interested in the natural world in its totality. Where would
you say Luke comes down here? Why?
o Environmental conservation efforts can be conservative in the sense that they try to undo
damage to the earth by limiting industrialization. The idea of environmental protection leaves
open the possibility of using industrial advances—the same forces that have been contaminating
the earth—to help resolve the problem. Does Luke sound more like a conservationist or a
protector? Explain.
4. The poster named scottsdalehigh64 is the most intense. He’s also fairly experienced: assuming
his username is true and he graduated high school in 1964, he’s about retirement age now. He
writes, “There is an alternate question: Why do we think we have a right to be so destructive to
other life forms on the planet? Perhaps the best answer is that we want to leave a good place to
live for the species that are left when we go extinct.”
Unlike most of the other posters, he doesn’t include any personal note or “best wishes” type
line in his response. He’s focused and intense.
o How much value does scottsdalehigh64 place in human existence?
o Where does he place value? What does scottsdalehigh64 think is worth aiding and protecting?
o Just from his words, how do you imagine scottsdalehigh64 would define “a good place to live?”
5. Scottsdalehigh64 doesn’t seem to like those who are “destructive to other life forms on the
planet.”
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o Could an argument be built that, in preparing for our own eventual extinction, we should make
sure that we eliminate all life-forms that are destructive to other life forms? What would that
elimination mean? What would need to be done? How could it be justified?
o In a newspaper column, the philosopher Jeff McMahan appears to tentatively endorse
scottsdalehigh64’s vision. He proposes that we “arrange the gradual extinction of carnivorous
species, replacing them with new herbivorous ones.” [2]
If, in fact, we decided to wipe out meat-
eating animals and leave the world to plants and plant eaters, would we be valuing most highly
ourselves? Nonhuman animals? The entire natural world? Something else? Explain your
response.
6. An excited poster, KiRa01, announces, “Just live like there’s no tomorrow!!!!”
With respect to the environment, justify his attitude in ethical terms.
Going Green
Fifty years ago airports were designed to reward fliers with architecture as striking as the new experience
of flight was rare and exciting. From those early days, only a few airports remain unspoiled by renovation
and expansion. The Long Beach Airport south of Los Angeles is a survivor. The low lines of midcentury
modern architecture captivate today’s visitors just as they did the first ones. The restaurant overlooking
the tarmac remains as elegant and perfectly simple as always. Walking the concourse, it’s easy to imagine
men in ties and women and children in their Sunday clothes waiting for a plane while uniformed porters
manage their suitcases.
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Flying is different today—no longer exciting and rare, it’s just frustrating and crowded. Recognizing that
reality, when the large European nations combined to form an airplane manufacturer, they didn’t choose
a distinguished and elevated name for their enterprise, they just called it Airbus: a company that makes
buses that happen to go up and down.
Airplanes are tremendously polluting. In the United States, large passenger flights account for about 3
percent of released greenhouse gasses. That doesn’t sound like much, but when you compare the number
of flights with car trips, it’s clear that each airplane is billowing massive carbon dioxide. And the problem
is only getting worse, at least on the tourism front. Over the course of the next decade, global tourism will
double to about 1.6 billion people annually.
Tourists aren’t the only fliers. Planes are also taken by people heading to other cities to talk about tourism.
One of them, Achim Steiner, is the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program. At a
recent conference in Spain, he said, “Tourism is an extraordinary growth industry, it’s the responsibility of
operators—from hoteliers to travel companies—as well as governments to ensure that sites are
sustainable.” [3]
Sustainability has at least two sides. On one side, there’s the economic reality: revenue provided by
visitors pays for needed services. An example comes from the Masai Mara park reserve in Kenya. In
villages surrounding the park, schools were forced to close when political unrest scared away the tourists
and their money. On the other side, sustainability also means environmental protection. According to
Steiner, there’s the possibility that “Masai Mara could be overused to the point where it loses its value.”
Q U E S T I O N S
1. According to Steiner, “Hoteliers, travel companies, and governments are responsible” for
ensuring the sustainability of sites including Masai Mara. In most discussions about paying the
costs of a clean environment, three groups are signaled:
o Those who contaminate the natural world
o Those who enjoy the natural world
o Those who are most able to pay
How do each of these three fit into Steiner’s vision?
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2. Airplane exhaust contributes significantly to the damage currently being done to the
environment. Steiner rode an airplane to a city to talk about that damage.
o What is a cost-benefit analysis?
o How could a cost-benefit analysis be used to show that his boarding the plane and going was
actually an environmentally respectable act?
3. Fifty years ago, airplanes contributed almost no pollution to the environment because so few
could afford to fly. One way to limit the amount of pollution into the air is through incentives. In
the airplane case, a large tax could be attached to an airline ticket, thus providing an incentive to
tourists to stay home or use alternate sources of transportation. Of course, for the very wealthy,
the tax will be more absorbable and, presumably, airplane travel would tend toward its origins:
flying would be something the rich do.
How could a utilitarian analysis be used to justify the action of, in essence, reserving plane flying
for the rich in the name of helping the environment?
4. The airport at Long Beach is a low-ranking historical treasure. Tourists will never flock to see it,
but it does incarnate and vivify a time in the recent past. The airport at Long Beach is also a
business. That may lead its directors to initiate remodeling and expansion plans that will destroy
the airport’s original essence.
o Is preserving the natural world like the preservation of a historical architectural treasure? If so,
why? If not, why not?
o Using standard arguments against the business responsibility to preserve the natural world (free
use, domination and progress, geological time), make the case that progress should be allowed
to destroy the Long Beach Airport’s historical authenticity if that course of action is profitable.
o Using standard arguments in favor of the business responsibility to preserve the natural world
(preservation for human welfare, for future generations, for the sake of the thing itself), make
the case that the Long Beach Airport should be preserved.
o If the airport is preserved, who should pay? Why?
5. In ethical terms, make the case that it’s more important to preserve the Masai Mara park reserve in
Kenya than the Long Beach Airport.
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IBM and IBM
Bernadette Patrick moved away from her home in Endicott, New York, saying this about the town: “It was
very neighborly and well kept, with lots of kids and families. Then all of a sudden it seemed like they put a
skull and crossbones on all the doors. It was like a scene from a science fiction movie.” [4]
The science fiction part is the large, white metal boxes attached to Endicott homes. With tubes burrowing
down in the earth and shooting up high into the air, they’re wired to pump air from below and jet it above.
The idea is to disperse toxic vapors rising up through the ground. The vapor’s source is industrial solvents
poured down drains and dripped out of leaky pipes at the local IBM factory over the course of its seventy-
five-year history.
Those seventy-five years have otherwise been good ones. IBM money and jobs drove the small town
forward. As Wanda Hudak put it, “The IBM plant paid for a lot of college educations and cottages at Perch
Pond.” [5]
The good feelings ended when a company IBM hired started showing up at people’s homes to
test the air and offer to install the mechanical ventilation systems.
Q U E S T I O N S
1. IBM is paying millions for cleanup efforts. They’re installing air cleaners on homes and pumping
contaminated groundwater to the surface for safe disposal. An IBM spokesman said this about
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the toxic pollution, “None of it was done intentionally, but we still are sticking around to take
care of it. We feel obligated legally, ethically. We are not going anywhere.” [6]
o Make the ethical case that those who contaminated the environment—IBM—should pay all the
cleanup costs.
o Make the case that those who benefit from a clean environment—the locals who work at the
company and those who don’t—should pay for the cleanup.
2. When the extent of the environmental pollution became clear, it was also evident that the cleanup
would be tremendously expensive. In general terms, how could a cost-benefit analysis be mounted to
decide between going forward with the environmental cleanup or closing the factory, shuttering the
town, and moving on?
3. One critical element of the notion of corporate social responsibility is the idea of sustainability.
o In both environmental and economic senses, what is sustainability?
o What would be sustained by a cleanup in this case? How?
4. One critical element of the notion of corporate social responsibility is the idea of stakeholder
theory.
o Who are the obvious stakeholders in this case?
o Thinking about the situation from the directorship of IBM, what are the company’s
responsibilities to each of the stakeholders?
5. The IBM of Endicott, New York, is an IBM of the past, one focused on factories and making
business machines like typewriters and photocopiers. The IBM of today leaves most hard
manufacturing to foreign firms in low-cost countries. What IBM now wants to do now, according
to their advertising, is “build a smarter planet.” That means solving problems like this one
reported by CNN:
Stockholm bogs down in rush-hour traffic. A series of bridges connecting Sweden’s capital
creates bottlenecks that cause gridlock and air pollution, waste millions of gallons of fuel,
hamper public transportation, and endanger pedestrians. [7]
The solution? Swede governmental officers decided on a congestion fee, on charging vehicles
money for entering the city at peak traffic times. The aim was to seriously reduce the number of
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cars downtown at rush hours. That’s easier said than done, however. Stopping people at toll
booths would just make the problem worse: it would add yet another air-polluting stop to the
traffic through town. So IBM was hired to produce camera technology allowing license plate
numbers to be recorded and recognized automatically. Then monthly bills were generated and
mailed out to the car owners. As CNN reported, these were the results:
Traffic fell 35 percent almost immediately and stayed down 22 percent—and not just at
peak times or solely downtown. Emissions also dropped by 14 percent. The streets
became more pedestrian friendly, and the buses began finishing their routes so quickly
that the city had to rewrite the schedules. The fee schedule makes it obvious when traffic
will be the worst, so drivers who trek in during peak hours know they’ll pay more for what
will probably be a maddening experience. As a result, people seem to be cutting out
unnecessary trips: bundling afterschool pickups, say, with visits to the grocery store. In
short, Swedes are driving smarter. [8]
When IBM protects the environment by cleaning up Endicott, they’re losing money; when IBM
protects the environment by selling smart systems to the Swedes, they’re profiting.
o Make the case that, ethically, IBM’s actions in Endicott are nobler than the actions in Sweden.
o Make the case that, ethically, IBM’s actions in Sweden are nobler than the actions in Endicott.
6. In the world of business ethics and the environment, one of the more spirited debates is this:
should we slow down technology and industrialization to use less and pollute less, or speed up
industrialization and technology in the hope that we’ll discover solutions to the environmental
problems caused by industrialization and technology?
o How does the case of IBM incarnate that debate?
o Does the decision about where you come down depend on where you place value (human
welfare versus environmental welfare)? Explain.
7. With respect to the environment and money, there are two formulas for thinking about IBM’s
project in Sweden:
a. The aim was to clean up the environment, and money happened to be made along
the way.
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b. The aim was to make money, and cleaning up the environment happened to be a good strategy
for profit.
In terms of basic values and ethics, outline the difference between these two visions.
Thinking about ethics and IBM in Endicott and in Sweden, what’s more important: the intentions of
a company when it acts, or the consequences of the actions? Explain.
Windmills and Condors
The wind farms of Northern California produce clean electricity. Every light bulb illuminated by the giant
turbines represents less destruction of the earth by mining and drilling operations and less contamination
of the air by coal- and oil-fired power plants. It also represents fewer California Condors.
The spinning blades of the windmills erected in spots including the Altamont Pass are proving deadly for
the rare birds, which are a kind of vulture. Here’s a reaction by the environmental writer and activist Jim
Wiegand: “For all the ‘green energy’ believers out there, this is a video you have to see. Each year across
America thousands of eagles, hawks, owls, falcons, vultures and condors perish at green energy wind
farms. This video will open your eyes and your mind when you see how easily a soaring vulture is smashed
by the innocent looking blades of a prop wind turbine.” [9]
Fatal Accident with Vulture on a Windmill
The video shows a large and calm vulture cycling slowly around a modern wind turbine and then getting
struck by one of the spinning blades. The bird drops out of the air. Left on the ground beside the towering
contraption, it drags and struggles to flap its broken wing.
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Q U E S T I O N S
1. Unlike single-cell creatures, vultures seem to have awareness and interest in their environment.
They notice distressed animals, circle patiently, and in the end descend to eat the carcass.
o How can this behavior be translated into an argument that animals have ethical rights?
o How can the claim that aware and interested vultures have independent ethical rights be
mustered into an argument against installing wind turbines in areas that threaten vultures, no
matter how much clean electrical energy they may generate?
2. If you have a chance to see the video and watch the fallen bird struggling and dying on the
ground, do the images change your feelings about the importance of protecting this creature?
o Assume the bird writhing on the ground is, in fact, suffering in a way not completely unlike
human suffering. How can this behavior be translated into an argument that animals have
ethical rights?
o Make the case that the video doesn’t allow the conclusion that birds suffer.
3. Assume that, for whatever reason, you’re convinced that those condors being cut down by
California wind turbines have ethical rights comparable with the ones we deposit in human
animals. Can you nonetheless outline an argument in favor of continued windmill use because of
the clean energy it provides?
o Make your case by appeal to a utilitarian argument.
o Make your case by appeal to a cost-benefit analysis.
o Make your case by appealing to the idea that the environment should be protected in its
entirety because, as an interlocked set of ecosystems, it holds autonomous value.
4. If you can make the case that some nonhuman animals that have autonomous ethical rights should be
allowed to meet their end in the name of clean energy, could you make the same argument for human
animals? Imagine, for example, that actually constructing these wind turbines leads to high worker
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fatalities, say, 10 times higher than any other kind of work. Could those deaths be justified ethically in
the name of clean energy? Why or why not?
The PETA Homepage
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are possibly the most active animal-rights organization in the
United States. On the day this case study was written, the organization’s home page featured pictures of a
sad-eyed Dalmatian, a noble elephant, and a cuddly rabbit. There was also a tease to a story set
underneath a picture of smiling, former President Clinton. It read, “What’s the secret behind this former
president’s newly trim waistline, enhanced energy, and improved cardiovascular health? A vegan diet!
Read more.” [10]
Q U E S T I O N S
1. A vegan diet excludes all products derived from animals and promotes plant-based eating. In this PETA
ad, what values probably underlie the strategy (is the appeal to protect animals made in the name of
human welfare, animal welfare, or general environmental welfare)? Justify.
2. What is anthropomorphism? How could the phenomenon of anthropomorphism lead someone to posit
autonomous ethical dignity, and rights, in nonhuman animals that really shouldn’t be considered worth
protecting any more than trees?
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3. From the description provided of the PETA home page, how could it be described as inviting
anthropomorphism?
4. Were you in charge at PETA, an organization fighting for animal an right that depends on
donations, would you use the phenomenon of anthropomorphism to boost your organization’s
revenue?
o What is an argument in favor of the strategy?
o What is an argument against the strategy?
[1] “Why Should We Save the Planet?,” Yahoo! Answers, accessed June 8,
2011,http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080610193018AA7IQt2.
[2] Jeff McMahan, “The Meat Eaters,” New York Times, September 19, 2010, accessed June 8,
2011, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/the-meat-eaters.
[3] James Kanter, “How Do You Measure Green Tourism?,” New York Times, October 6, 2008, accessed June 8,
2011, http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/is-there-any-such-thing-as-green-tourism.
[4] Janet Gramza, “Life in the Plume: IBM’s Pollution Haunts a Village,” Post-Standard, January 11, 2009, accessed
June 8, 2011,http://www.syracuse.com/specialreports/index.ssf/2009/01/life_in_the_plume_ibms_polluti.html.
[5] Janet Gramza, “Life in the Plume: IBM’s Pollution Haunts a Village,” Post-Standard, January 11, 2009, accessed
June 8, 2011,http://www.syracuse.com/specialreports/index.ssf/2009/01/life_in_the_plume_ibms_polluti.html.
[6] Janet Gramza, “Life in the Plume: IBM’s Pollution Haunts a Village,” Post-Standard, January 11, 2009, accessed
June 8, 2011,http://www.syracuse.com/specialreports/index.ssf/2009/01/life_in_the_plume_ibms_polluti.html.
[7] Jeffrey M. O’Brien, “IBM’s Grand Plan to Save the Planet,” CNN Money, April 21, 2009, accessed June 8,
2011,http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/20/technology/obrien_ibm.fortune/index.htm.
[8] Jeffrey M. O’Brien, “IBM’s Grand Plan to Save the Planet,” CNN Money, April 21, 2009, accessed June 8,
2011,http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/20/technology/obrien_ibm.fortune/index.htm
[9] C. Taibibi, “California Condors, Wind Farms on Collision Course,” Examiner.com, August 30, 2009, accessed June
8, 2011, http://www.examiner.com/wildlife-conservation-in-national/california-condors-wind-farms-on-collision-
course.
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[10] Peta.org, “Try Bill Clinton's New Diet!,” accessed June 8,
2011,https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=3315.
4/22/2021 Baristas at Starbucks Accuse Service Company of Abuse and Pay Gaps - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/starbucks-discrimination-race.html 1/3
Baristas at Starbucks Accuse Service Company of Abuse and Pay Gaps A union representing employees at airport Starbucks locations says immigrant, transgender and black baristas have faced discrimination.
By Maria Cramer
Published March 1, 2020 Updated March 3, 2020
One transgender barista said his supervisors kept writing “Jessica” instead of Jay on his work schedule.
They stared at his stubble and frowned at his deepening voice. A manager even laughed when he told her to stop referring to him as “she,” said the barista, Jay Kelly, who works at a Starbucks at Orlando International Airport in Florida.
“It’s like a bullet to my heart,” he said. “They look at me like I’m disgusting or like I’m not human or a type of animal that doesn’t belong in that airport.”
Mr. Kelly, 25, is one of some 300 employees who responded to a union survey about conditions working for HMSHost, a travel food service company that has long operated Starbucks and other coffee shops in airports nationwide. His allegations and others’ — including that dozens of employees were told to speak English — were made in a report the union released amid tense negotiations with HMSHost, and as labor groups reach out to marginalized people to increase their membership.
HMSHost denied any discrimination and accused the union, UNITE HERE, of spreading false information to gain leverage at the bargaining table. “We do not discriminate against any associate based on race, ethnicity, national origin, L.G.B.T.Q. status or any other reason,” the company said in a statement. “Our fair treatment policy ensures an open and inclusive environment.”
Laura FitzRandolph, HMSHost’s chief human resources officer, said the company took complaints of discrimination seriously.
“If an issue comes to our attention, as in this case, we swiftly investigate and resolve it,” she said in a statement.
In its survey, the union said that the median pay for black baristas was less than for white baristas, based on an analysis of wage data for more than 2,000 unionized employees.
In its statement, HMSHost said the pay analysis was misleading and accused the union of using isolated complaints to undermine the company and unionize more shops. UNITE HERE has been organizing at Starbucks airport locations in Orlando, Denver and other cities.
“The union has deployed a well-known tactic of using the media to frame its false narrative to negotiate these agreements,” the company said. HMSHost declined to comment on specific allegations, employees or managers, citing privacy concerns.
Caught between the union and HMSHost is Starbucks, which does not employ the workers who wear its signature green aprons.
Adam Yalowitz, a research coordinator with UNITE HERE, said the union wanted Starbucks to pressure HMSHost to improve conditions for the employees and to emulate the more progressive policies of Starbucks, which has touted its support of gay marriage, adapted its computer system to reflect the preferred names of employees and added coverage of sex reassignment surgery to the company’s health benefits.
“Workers are publicly calling on Starbucks to fix the problems at these stores,” Mr. Yalowitz said.
A Starbucks spokesman referred questions to HMSHost.
The union’s focus on transgender issues is the latest effort by labor organizations to tap into social groups that have felt disempowered to mobilize workers, said Jonathan Cutler, a sociology professor at Wesleyan University who has written about the labor movement.
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“Organized labor often lives or dies by its ability to tap into broader social movements,” he said. “In this case, you’re seeing the most public effort to organize around transgender issues.”
The union said the employee data showed that 79 percent of workers were women and 64 percent were black or Latino. Many of them are gay or transgender, according to the union.
These are key demographics for unions like UNITE HERE, which tend to represent workers in low-wage industries, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of labor education research at Cornell University.
“Women and people of color, those are the workers most likely to organize,” she said. Unions “have to be strategic and work with their community allies. And the L.G.B.T.Q. community, particularly the people of color in the L.G.B.T.Q. community, are often very good allies.”
UNITE HERE released the survey results in a report that featured photos and accounts by Mr. Kelly and other baristas around the country, including Martha Mendoza, a barista at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport who said her manager scolded her because she spoke English with an accent, and Connie Fong, a barista at Portland International Airport who said her supervisor chanted “build the wall” at her.
Several transgender employees asserted in the report that managers refused to use their correct pronouns, or had referred to them by their “dead names,” the names they were given at birth and no longer use.
The report also quoted a former barista in Orlando who said he believed he was fired because he tried to organize workers.
Ninety-six immigrants responded to the survey. More than a quarter of them said they were told to stop speaking foreign languages at work, according to the report.
HMSHost said the survey was based on a questionnaire that “contained deceptive and leading language.” The company noted that only 13 percent of unionized employees responded to it “despite the pressure some associates reportedly felt to complete the questionnaire.”
Union officials said they analyzed wage data for a nine-month period in 2019 and found that the median pay for black baristas was $1.85 an hour less than it was for white baristas working at Starbucks in 27 U.S. airports.
The company said the median pay figures the union reported did not account for where employees lived, since wages vary according to the cost of living around the country.
“All wage rates have been negotiated and agreed upon by the union during the collective bargaining process with HMSHost and these rates are not based on race,” the company said.
The union is pushing HMSHost to increase its hourly minimum wage to $15 and to provide benefits in line with what Starbucks offers its employees, like full tuition reimbursement.
Jay Kelly, who is transgender, said a manager at the HMSHost-operated Starbucks location where he works refused to use his correct pronouns. Phelan M. Ebenhack for The New York Times
4/22/2021 Baristas at Starbucks Accuse Service Company of Abuse and Pay Gaps - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/business/starbucks-discrimination-race.html 3/3
Union officials said the survey found that many employees, who earn an average of $13.12 an hour, often had a difficult time paying their rent or paying for food. Some have had to sleep at the airport because they could not afford to take a taxi or Uber back home after a late shift, they said.
In 2018, after Starbucks employees in Philadelphia called the police on two black men who asked to use the store bathroom, Starbucks shut down its 8,000 stores for one day so employees could receive anti-bias training. HMSHost locations, as well as other Starbucks-licensed stores in supermarkets and hotels, did not offer the training at the time.
According to HMSHost, the company offers training on anti-discrimination, and harassment and non discrimination language has been written into collective bargaining agreements.
Lacreshia Lewis, 27, who works with Mr. Kelly in Orlando, said she and other workers regularly write in Mr. Kelly’s name for him on the schedule. She has confronted managers about their refusal to use the right pronouns.
“They say, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize it,’ or try to play it off,” she said. “I think they’re purposely trying to misgender him.”
Maria Cramer is a breaking news reporter on the Express Desk. @NYTimesCramer
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Experts estimate that a chunk of forest the size of a soccer �eld is lost every second to deforestation. (Image credit: Shutterstock)
Deforestation: Facts, Causes & E�ects By Sarah Derouin - Live Science Contributor November 06, 2019
Reference Article: Facts about deforestation.
Deforestation is the permanent removal of trees to make room for something besides forest. This can include clearing the land for agriculture or grazing, or using the timber for fuel, construction or manufacturing.
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Forests cover more than 30% of the Earth's land surface, according to the World Wildlife Fund. These forested areas can provide food, medicine and fuel for more than a billion people. Worldwide, forests provide 13.4 million people with jobs in the forest sector, and another 41 million people have jobs related to forests.
Forests are a resource, but they are also large, undeveloped swaths of land that can be converted for purposes such as agriculture and grazing. In North America, about half the forests in the eastern part of the continent were cut down for timber and farming between the 1600s and late 1800s, according to National Geographic.
Today, most deforestation is happening in the tropics. Areas that were inaccessible in the past are now within reach as new roads are constructed through the dense forests. A 2017 report by scientists at the University of Maryland showed that the tropics lost about 61,000 square miles (158,000 square kilometers) of forest in 2017 — an area the size of Bangladesh.
Reasons forests are destroyed
The World Bank estimates that about 3.9 million square miles (10 million square km) of forest have been lost since the beginning of the 20th century. In the past 25 years, forests shrank by 502,000 square miles (1.3 million square km) — an area bigger than the size of South Africa. In 2018, The Guardian reported that every second, a chunk of forest equivalent to the size of a soccer �eld is lost.
Often, deforestation occurs when forested area is cut and cleared to make way for agriculture or grazing. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) reports that just four commodities are responsible for tropical deforestation: beef, soy, palm oil and wood products. UCS estimates that an area the size of Switzerland (14,800 square miles, or 38,300 square km) is lost to deforestation every year.
Natural �res in tropical forests tend to be rare but intense. Human-lit �res are commonly used to clear land for agricultural use. First, valuable timber is harvested, then the remaining vegetation is burned to make way for crops like soy or cattle grazing. In 2019, the number of human-lit �res in Brazil skyrocketed. As of August 2019, more than 80,000 �res burned in the Amazon, an increase of almost 80% from 2018, National Geographic reported.
Many forests are cleared to make way for palm oil plantations. Palm oil is the most commonly produced vegetable oil and is found in half of all supermarket products. It's cheap, versatile and can be added to both food and personal products like
Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests in order to make the land available for other uses.
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lipsticks and shampoo. Its popularity has spurred people to clear tropical forests to grow more palm trees. Growing the trees that produce the oil requires the leveling of native forest and the destruction of local peatlands — which doubles the harmful e�ect on the ecosystem. According to a report published by Zion Market Research, the global palm oil market was valued at $65.73 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $92.84 billion in 2021.
A palm tree farm planted where there was once a rainforest. (Image credit: Shutterstock)
E�ects of deforestation
Forests can be found from the tropics to high-latitude areas. They are home to 80% of terrestrial biodiversity, containing a wide array of trees, plants, animals and microbes, according to the World Bank, an international �nancial institution. Some places are especially diverse — the tropical forests of New Guinea, for example, contain more than 6% of the world's species of plants and animals.
Forests provide more than a home for a diverse collection of living things; they are also an important resource for many around the world. In countries like Uganda, people rely on trees for �rewood, timber and charcoal. Over the past 25 years, Uganda has lost 63% of its forest cover, Reuters reported. Families send children — primarily girls — to collect �rewood, and
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kids have to trek farther and farther to get to the trees. Collecting enough wood often takes all day, so the children miss school.
According to a 2018 FAO report, three-quarters of the Earth’s freshwater comes from forested watersheds, and the loss of trees can a�ect water quality. The UN's 2018 State of the World's Forests report found that over half the global population relies on forested watersheds for their drinking water as well as water used for agriculture and industry.
Related: The Latest Deforestation News Stories
Deforestation in tropical regions can also a�ect the way water vapor is produced over the canopy, which causes reduced rainfall. A 2019 study published in the journal Ecohydrology showed that parts of the Amazon rainforest that were converted to agricultural land had higher soil and air temperatures, which can exacerbate drought conditions. In comparison, forested land had rates of evapotranspiration that were about three times higher, adding more water vapor to the air.
Trees also absorb carbon dioxide, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions produced by human activity. As climate change continues, trees play an important role in carbon sequestration, or the capture and storage of excess carbon dioxide. Tropical trees alone are estimated to provide about 23% of the climate mitigation that's needed to o�set climate change, according to the World Resources Institute, a nonpro�t global research institute.
Deforestation not only removes vegetation that is important for removing carbon dioxide from the air, but the act of clearing the forests also produces greenhouse gas emissions. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says that deforestation is the second-leading cause of climate change. (The �rst is the burning of fossil fuels.) In fact, deforestation accounts for nearly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Not only does deforestation remove trees that sequester greenhouse gases, but it also produces a signi�cant amount of greenhouse gases in the process. (Image credit: Shutterstock)
Deforestation solutions
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Developing alternatives to deforestation can help decrease the need for tree clearing. For example, the desire to expand the amount of land used for agriculture is an attractive reason to deforest an area. But if people adopted sustainable farming practices or employed new farming technologies and crops, the need for more land might be diminished, according to the UN's Sustainable Forest Management Toolbox.
Forests can also be restored, through replanting trees in cleared areas or simply allowing the forest ecosystem to regenerate over time. The goal of restoration is to return the forest to its original state, before it was cleared, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The sooner a cleared area is reforested, the quicker the ecosystem can start to repair itself. Afterward, wildlife will return, water systems will reestablish, carbon will be sequestered and soils will be replenished.
Everyone can do their part to curb deforestation. We can buy certi�ed wood products, go paperless whenever possible, limit our consumption of products that use palm oil and plant a tree when possible.
Additional resources:
Check out this animation of deforestation in the Amazon made with images from NASA's Landsat 5 and 7 satellites. Learn more about forest conservation e�orts from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Read more about the problems caused by deforestation according to the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature.
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4/22/2021 Time's Up Comes for McDonald's
https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2019/05/22/time-s-comes-mcdonald-s?utm_source=morning_brew 1/5
METOO
Time's Up Comes for McDonald's McDonald’s problems are also emblematic of the restaurant industry MAY 22, 2019
KINSEY GRANT BUSINESS EDITOR AND PODCAST HOST
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Twenty-�ve McDonald’s (+0.43%) workers have accused the fast food chain of
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4/22/2021 Time's Up Comes for McDonald's
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sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation for speaking out about
either.
The widespread collection of charges (the third such round in three years) was �led
yesterday with support from the #MeToo-spearheading Time’s Up Legal Defense
Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the labor group Fight for $15.
The stakes are high As the NYT points out, this campaign against McDonald’s is a “major test of the
legal and labor power of the #MeToo movement.” McDonald’s has almost 2 million
workers in 100+ countries—making it a key player in conversations around global
economic conditions.
McDonald’s problems are also emblematic of the broader restaurant industry,
which has one of the highest rates of workplace sexual harassment around.
A 2016 survey found 40% of female fast food workers said they’d experienced
workplace sexual harassment.
Over 20% said they’d faced consequences, like missing out on raises or
getting their hours cut, for reporting misconduct.
But it’s complicated Almost 95% of McDonald’s U.S. locations are independently owned
franchises. That’s given corporate legal teams grounds to argue that McDonald’s
(the company) is not liable for the behavior of employees at McDonald’s (the
franchisee-owned stores).
The National Labor Relations Board is currently presiding over a case that
could decide whether that argument has legs.
McDonald’s has made some changes. CEO Steve Easterbrook says his company
has improved its harassment policies, sent posters with the new policies to all of
its restaurants, and put most franchise owners through new training. It also plans
to establish a complaint hotline.
4/22/2021 Time's Up Comes for McDonald's
https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2019/05/22/time-s-comes-mcdonald-s?utm_source=morning_brew 3/5
Still, McDonald’s workers (and some of those who �led claims) ((and activist/Top
Chef host Padma Lakshmi)) protested yesterday in front of Mickey D’s Chicago HQ
—just two days before the chain’s annual shareholder meeting.
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4/22/2021 Perdue Farms announces animal care changes
https://www.feedstuffs.com/print/24370 1/3
Perdue Farms has announced animal care improvements that it says will elevate the welfare of its
chickens and that promise to meet growing customer and consumer demand for poultry raised to
higher welfare standards. The details are outlined in the release of the company’s first annual
Credit: buhanovskiy/iStock/Thinkstock.
Perdue Farms announces animal care changes
Company moving to controlled-atmosphere stunning.
Jul 17, 2017
4/22/2021 Perdue Farms announces animal care changes
https://www.feedstuffs.com/print/24370 2/3
progress report since its comprehensive 2016 commitment to accelerate advancements in animal
care.
The announcement came as part of Perdue’s Animal Care Summit, a gathering of global animal
care experts, advocates, researchers and farmers.
“We know that trust is earned by responding to consumers and other stakeholders, and that
includes a willingness to make significant changes,” said Jim Perdue, chairman of Perdue Farms.
“It’s not easy, and it requires commitment, resources and time, but people expect more from Perdue,
and we have to keep improving.”
Perdue Farms also became the first major poultry company to promise its current and future
customers a sustainable supply of chicken that meets all of the animal welfare criteria outlined in the
“Joint Animal Protection Agency Statement on Broiler Chicken Welfare Issues.” The standards,
agreed upon by a coalition of nine advocacy groups as meaningful progress to address the main
welfare concerns with broiler production, match many of the changes Perdue Farms was already
exploring as part of its comprehensive Commitments to Animal Care program.
“Major food companies are increasingly committing to treating chickens in their supply chains better.
Perdue, with this announcement, becomes the largest poultry producer to ensure that this demand
will be met,” said Josh Balk, vice president of farm animal protection at The Humane Society of the
United States. “We applaud Perdue for focusing its improvements on the core areas of concern
within the poultry industry, and this holistic approach demonstrates all that’s possible in creating
better lives for billions of chickens.”
Perdue Farms' recent announcement includes:
• Giving chickens more space, more light during the day and longer lights-off periods for rest; • Increasing the number of chicken houses with windows; • Continuing to study the role of enrichments in encouraging active behavior; • Raising and studying slower-growing chickens; • Moving to controlled-atmosphere stunning (CAS), and • Strengthening relationships with farmers.
4/22/2021 Perdue Farms announces animal care changes
https://www.feedstuffs.com/print/24370 3/3
Source URL: https://www.feedstuffs.com/news/perdue-farms-announces-animal-care-changes
As the fourth-largest poultry company in the U.S. – representing 7% of the nation’s chicken
production – Perdue Farms said its commitment and progress indicate a sizeable shift away from
industry standards and toward addressing customer and consumer concerns about animal welfare,
including issues related to fast growth.
“Purdue’s animal welfare improvements and its promise to meet the demands of companies with
progressive animal welfare policies puts other poultry producers on notice,” said Brent Cox, vice
president of corporate outreach at Mercy For Animals. “It’s time for Tyson Foods, Foster Farms and
others to catch up with business trends, consumer expectations and the latest in animal welfare
science by committing to (Global Animal Partnership) standards and eliminating the worst forms of
animal abuse in their supply chains.”
Going forward, Perdue Farms will continue to progress using the Five Freedoms -- a globally
accepted standard for animal husbandry that goes beyond animals’ “needs” to include their “wants” -
- and to involve the farmers who raise the company's chickens. Specific advancements will include
studying a fully enclosed, climate-controlled, de-stress staging area for birds that arrive at the plant,
continued work with slower-growing chicken breeds and further implementation of CAS.
“I’ve been very impressed with Perdue as to the direction they’re going with the care of the birds.
That’s what the consumer wants. Perdue is certainly meeting that concern, and we’re here to grow
chickens to meet that concern the best we way we can,” said Jeffrey Reed, a Perdue farm family
partner.
4/22/2021 Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/?sh=6e38b6605945 1/7
Healthcare
I am an Infectious Disease specialist and author of Resilience: One Family's Story of Hope and Triumph over Evil and of Conducting Clinical Research, the essential guide to the topic.
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Fracking Is Dangerous To Your
Health -- Here's Why
Feb 23, 2017, 06:30am EST
Judy Stone Senior Contributor
This article is more than 4 years old.
Fracking, or drilling for gas by hydraulic fracturing, has been associated
with a growing number of health risks. Last week, I began this series looking
at some of the hazardous chemicals injected into the wells to make drilling
easier and cheaper, and the growing risks to our health by the GOP rushing
through the approval of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
4/22/2021 Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/?sh=6e38b6605945 2/7
This post looks in greater depth at the health problems linked to fracking.
These are not hypothetical concerns—there are now more than 700 studies
looking at risks—and more than 80% of the health studies document risks or
actual harms.
It’s also important to note that these risks are likely to be seriously
underestimated, because the environmental agencies have been
downplaying the risks to the public. A new in-depth exposé from
investigative journalists at Public Herald looks in-depth at the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) misconduct and
negligence, as the DEP studiously ignored citizens’ complaints, sometimes
not even testing water samples. Earlier studies from ProPublica and others
showed similar EPA failures in the western U.S.
A variety of health problems are associated with fracking
Respiratory problems:
From $3.99
02:0903:20
Judy Eckert holding water contaminated with arsenic drawn from her private well. In 2007 Guardian... [+]
4/22/2021 Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/?sh=6e38b6605945 3/7
Cough, shortness of breath and wheezing are the most common complaints
of residents living near fracked wells. Toxic gases like benzene are released
from the rock by fracking. Similarly, a toxic waste brew of water and
chemicals is often stored in open pits, releasing volatile organic compounds
into the air. These noxious chemicals and particulates are also released by
the diesel powered pumps used to inject the water. An epidemiological
study of more than 400,000 patients of Pennsylvania’s Geisinger clinic,
done with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, found a significant
association between fracking and increases in mild, moderate and severe
cases of asthma (odds ratios 4.4 to 1.5). Hopkins’ Dr. Brian Schwartz
cautions that residents should be aware of this hazard as “some ‘pristine’
rural areas are converted to heavily trafficked industrial areas.”
Problems during pregnancy:
Fracking chemicals are harmful to pregnant women and their developing
babies. West Virginia researchers found endocrine-disrupting chemicals in
surface waters near wastewater disposal sites; these types of chemicals can
hurt the developing fetus even when present at very low concentrations.
Another Hopkins/Geisinger study looked at records of almost 11,000
women with newborns who lived near fracking sites and found a 40%
increased chance of having a premature baby and a 30% risk of having the
pregnancy be classified as “high-risk,” though they controlled for
socioeconomic status and other risk factors. Contributing factors likely
include air and water pollution, stress from the noise and traffic (1,000
tankers/well on average).
Premature babies accounted for 35% of infant deaths in 2010. In addition to
the personal toll on the families, preemies are very expensive for society—
prematurity is a major cause of neurologic disabilities in kids, and their cost
of care was more the $26 billion in 2005 alone, or $51,600 per preemie.
Cost to employers during the infant’s first year of life averaged $46,004—
more than tenfold higher than for a full-term delivery.
4/22/2021 Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/?sh=6e38b6605945 4/7
[Note that if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, women may once again be
denied health insurance for pregnancies and a premature baby will likely
never be granted health insurance. According to the March of Dimes,
Medicaid expansion of health insurance to low-income citizens helped the
percentage of babies born as preemies drop to a low level of 11.4% in 2013.]
Noise, stress and sleep deprivation
Other studies have found that the noise from the drilling itself, the gas
compressors, other heavy equipment and the truck traffic is high enough to
disturb sleep, cause stress and increase high blood pressure. Longer-term
exposure to noise pollution contributes to endocrine abnormalities and
diabetes, heart disease, stress and depression, and has been linked to
learning difficulties in children. Sleep deprivation has pervasive public
health consequences, from causing accidents to chronic diseases.
Another epidemiologic study from University of Pennsylvania and Columbia
University compared the hospitalization rates between a county with active
fracking and a neighboring county without. This study found that fracking
well density was significantly associated with higher inpatient
hospitalization for cardiac or neurologic problems. There was also an
association between skin conditions, cancer and urologic problems and the
proximity of homes to active wells.
Spills and accidents
With disturbing frequency, new spills or accidents are reported at the same
time as industry tries to reassure that fracking brings safe and clean energy.
Tell that to the residents of Dimock, Pa., who have had their drinking water
destroyed, or those in many other communities.
4/22/2021 Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/?sh=6e38b6605945 5/7
A newly released study found 6,648 spills in just four states over the past 10
years. Once again, the EPA had reported a far lower number—457 in eight
states over a six-year period. Why the huge difference? Because the EPA
chose to only look at the actual fracturing stage, rather than the whole life
cycle of the gas and oil production. The DeSmogBlog notes that just this
month, the day after U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave the owners of the
Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) the final permit it needed to build across
Lake Oahe (threatening the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s land and water), a
pipeline of a DAPL co-owner exploded near New Orleans, killing one and
injuring others. Aging pipelines pose special risks as they deteriorate. An
ExxonMobil pipeline built in 1947 spilled 134,000 gallons of gas in
Arkansas. You can see the location and magnitude of the spills at this handy
interactive from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
(NCEAS) Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP). Another
disturbing data viz shows the type of spill and whether water was impacted.
CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley - Penn. town CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley - Penn. town ……
4/22/2021 Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/?sh=6e38b6605945 6/7
But new fracking has additional risks, as the conventional pipes often used
are unable to withstand the high pressure of the fracking mixture being
injected. In fact, new wells were not safer, and 6% of unconventional
(fracked) wells drilled since 2000 showed problems, with even the Pa. DEP
(shown by Public Herald to not be thorough in investigating citizens'
complaints, nor entirely forthcoming) confirming more than 100
contaminated drinking water wells.
Conclusion
The oil and gas industry says that these health problems are not proven to
be caused by fracking. That is partially true—especially since agencies like
the Pa. DEP have actively hidden complaints or even failed to test the water
of residents, as Public Herald reported. With the new head of the EPA, Scott
Pruitt, determined to dismantle the agency and its protections, we will likely
never have definitive proof. Some health problems, such as cancer and some
neurologic problems, also take years to develop after an exposure.
Fracking profits go to private industry but the public—families and
communities—bear the costs of the many health complications from the
Map of unconventional oil and gas spills in Pennsylvania -- courtesy SNAPP partnership. Click on the... [+]
4/22/2021 Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why
https://www.forbes.com/sites/judystone/2017/02/23/fracking-is-dangerous-to-your-health-heres-why/?sh=6e38b6605945 7/7
drilling.
There is growing evidence of a variety of health problems being associated
with fracking. Common sense dictates that drinking and breathing cancer-
causing agents will take their toll. The correlation is too strong to ignore,
especially when we have other, cleaner energy options. For our safety and
that of future generations, we should not allow the new administration to
sell off public lands, nor allow drilling on our land, and should ban fracking
completely.
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Judy Stone
I am an Infectious Disease specialist and author of Resilience: One Family's Story of
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Stories / Depletion of Natural Resources
The needs of 7 billion people…
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The needs of 7 billion people… Resources are depleted when it is being used faster than it can replenish itself. The industrial revolution is when it all began. As our culture advanced and our species invented many things that will make
27,147,003,980 Tons of resources extracted from Earth G LO B A L LY, T H I S Y E A R
IN 2021 THIS MONTH THIS WEEK
TODAY
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our lives easier, our demand for raw materials increased by leaps and bounds. We get these resources from the other. The problem is, we’re using too much and without care. Our planet just can’t keep up with our ever increasing demands.
More: Consequences of Depletion of Natural Resources
What causes the depletion of our natural resources?
Overpopulation. With 7 billion people on the planet, the demand on Earth’s resources continue to increase. Overconsumption and waste. This is the excessive and unnecessary use of resources. Deforestation and the Destruction of Ecosystems leading to loss of biodiversity. Mining of Minerals and Oil. Technological and Industrial Development. Erosion. Pollution and Contamination of resources.
What resources are in decline? Water – Even though you see water everywhere and our planet is 70% water, only 2.5% of that 70% is fresh water. The rest is salt water and not useful to humans at all. That small percentage of fresh water is mostly in
�� Worl� Count�
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the form of ice or permanent snow cover. So, we really have only a few percent available for use. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predict that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will have no water to drink. Coal – This is the most used fossil fuel and a non-renewable energy source. Peak coal extraction is predicted between 2025 and 2048. In 2011, it was estimated that we have enough coal to meet global demands for 188 years.If the demand increases, the timeframe will decrease.
More: Negative Effects of Coal Mining
Oil – Without oil, global transportation will be severely debilitated. The BP Statistical Review of World Energy estimates that there is 188.8 million tons of oil left in the known oil reserves as of 2010. If our current demand continues, this oil will only be enough to supply the world demands for the next 46.2 years. Natural Gas – As of 2010, the known reserves of natural gas was estimated to last 58.6 years with the current global production. Fish – Fishermen from a lot of coastal provinces report a decline in their catch. Other marine species such as the tuna is close to extinction due to overfishing. This is a resource since Fish is part of our major food group.
More: World Oil Consumption Per Day
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Phosphorous – This resource is used for fertilizers to help plants grow. Scientists from the Global Phosphorous Research initiative estimates that peak phosphorous will be reached by 2030. Phosphorous is derived from phosphorous rock and guano.
How can we help stop our natural resources from running out? Many countries are now developing sources of renewable and sustainable energy such as solar, wind and hydro power. These are natural resources and are clean sources of energy. They will not pollute the environment.
Read more about the state of our environment at The World Counts: Stories. There are many things that you can do from your end to help stop the further degradation of our environment and its natural resources. Know the stories behind the numbers. Your action counts.
46.82031289 Percent coral reefs left G LO B A L LY, R I G H T N O W
NOW IN 2021 THIS MONTH
THIS WEEK TODAY
�� Worl� Count�
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8,570,004.05 Hectares of forests cut down or burned G LO B A L LY, T H I S Y E A R
IN 2021 THIS MONTH
THIS WEEK TODAY
26y 252d 02h 56m 16s Time left to the end of seafood R I G H T N O W
28y 252d 02h 56m 16s Earth running out of food
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I F G LO B A L F O O D S Y S T E M S A R E N O T T R A N S F O R M E D
1.7826718648 Number of planet Earths we need T O P R O V I D E R E S O U R C E S A N D A B S O R B O U R WA S T E
NOW IN 2021 THIS MONTH
THIS WEEK TODAY
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deeper awareness about the lives we are living - and the consequences it has - such changes are unlikely to occur. TheWorldCounts was created with a modest hope that it
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Global Challenges If you compare Earth's history to a calendar year then we (humans) have
Happiness & Purpose Our focus on consumption and material wealth makes sense if it leads
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only have existed for about 37 minutes - and we have used 33% of Earth's entire natural resources in the last 0.2 seconds!
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4/22/2021 Global Scarcity: Scramble for Dwindling Natural Resources - Yale E360
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Michael Klare
Yale Environment 360
Global Scarcity: Scramble for Dwindling Natural Resources
National security expert Michael Klare believes the struggle for the world’s resources will be one of the defining political and environmental realities of the 21st century. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, he discusses the threat this scramble poses to the natural world
and what can be done to sustainably meet the resource challenge.
BY DIANE TOOMEY • MAY 23, 2012
Michael Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in
Massachusetts, devotes much of his time these days to thinking about the intensifying
competition for increasingly scarce natural resources. His most recent book, �e Race for What’s Left: �e Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources, describes how the world economy has entered a period of what he calls “tough” extraction for energy,
minerals, and other commodities, meaning that the easy-to-get resources have been
exploited and a rapidly growing population is now turning to resources in the planet’s
most remote regions — the Arctic, the deep ocean, and war zones like Afghanistan. �e
exploitation of “tough” resources, such as “fracking” for natural gas in underground
shale formations, carries with it far greater environmental risk, Klare says.
In an interview with Yale Environment 360 contributor Diane Toomey, Klare discussed China’s surging appetite for
resources, the growing potential for
political and military conflict as
commodities become more scarce, and
the disturbing trend of the planet’s
agricultural land being bought by
companies and governments seeking to
ensure that their people will have
enough food in the future. �e way to reduce resource conflicts, says Klare, is to find
substitute materials and to significantly boost efficiency in a host of realms, most
notably energy. Hope for the future, he says, lies with innovative entrepreneurs and,
especially, the young. “�ey all want to be involved in developing solutions,” said
Klare, “and they have a lot of optimism and enthusiasm for this.”
Yale Environment 360: You make the point that when it comes to the age-old competition for raw materials, we’re in an unprecedented age. How so?
Michael Klare: I do believe that’s the case. Humans have been struggling to gain control of vital resources since the beginning of time, but I think we’re in a new era
because we’re running out of places to go. Humans have constantly moved to new
areas, to new continents, when they’ve run out of things in their home territory. But
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there aren’t any more new continents to go to. We’re going now to the last places left
on earth that haven’t been exploited: the Arctic, the deep oceans, the inner jungles in
Africa, Afghanistan. �ere are very few places left that haven’t been fully tapped, so
this is humanity’s last chance to exploit the earth, and after this there’s nowhere else to
go.
e360: Natural resource extraction has never been a pretty business when it comes to the environment, but you write that now that the era of easy oil, easy gas, easy
minerals and other resources is basically over, and what’s left is in deep water, remote
or inhospitable climates, or in geological formations that require extraordinary means
to get at. So paint me a picture of what extracting these tough resources looks like.
Klare: We’re really going to be using very aggressive means of extraction, so the environmental consequences are going to be proportionally greater. For example, to
get oil and natural gas out of shale rock, you can’t just drill
“Oil companies want to turn this country back to what it was before environmentalism became an
issue.”
and expect it to come out. It doesn’t work that way. You have to smash the rock, you
have to produce fractures in the rock, and we use a very aggressive technology to do
that — hydraulic fracturing — and the water is brought under tremendous pressure and
it’s laced with toxic chemicals, and when the water is extracted from these wells it can’t
be put back into the environment without risk of poisoning water supplies. So there’s
a tremendous problem of storage, of toxic water supplies, and we really haven’t solved
that problem.
And that’s just one example. Drilling in the Arctic presents a tremendous problem
because the Arctic, by its very nature, is at the edge of survival and all the species
there are living at the edge of survival, so any oil spill could push them over the edge
into extinction. So [oil companies] must have on hand all kinds of extra capacity to
deal with the possibility of spills, and that’s much more difficult to engineer than in
the Gulf of Mexico, where there are tens of thousands of boats that you could hire on
short notice to bring out skimmers and booms to contain a spill. �ere’s nothing like
that in the Arctic. Moreover, if this were to happen in winter, there would be no way to
move equipment up there to build a relief drill. Remember, it was a relief drill that
closed the Deepwater Horizon spill, but you can’t do that in the middle of winter
when the Arctic [Ocean] is covered with ice.
e360: Yet despite all that, there’s profits to be made.
Klare: �ere’s profits to be made, and this is particularly important to recognize — that
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this is attractive to the private international oil companies, like Shell, BP, and Exxon
Mobil that are going into the Arctic, because they’ve been pushed out of the Middle
East, Venezuela, and Russia by state-owned companies. So there are very few places
where they can go and control the whole process of production, from beginning to
end, and the Arctic is one of those few areas.
LISTEN: Michael Klare talks about how mining companies are exploiting one of the last protected areas of Gabon.
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�ere’s more to it than just that. We’re really at a turning point and I think most
people in this country and around the world understand that before too long we’re
going to have to transition to other types of energy if we’re to avoid the catastrophic
effects of climate change. But the big oil companies, they only know one business,
which is producing oil and natural gas and selling it in their service stations. And so
they’re determined to maintain their business model as long as possible and they’re
resisting the transition to alternative fuels.
e360: North America has more than its share of so-called tough oil and gas. �at includes the Alberta tar sands and the shale gas fields in the U.S. that are being
fracked. As energy extraction heats up in North America, you’ve written that the U.S.
is in danger of becoming “a third-world petro state.” What do you mean by that?
Klare: Consider what [happened] in the 1960s and 1970s when U.S. and European oil companies moved into countries like Nigeria and Angola. You had very low
government oversight of oil company operations, little or no environmental
protection, a lot of corruption, so it was easy to expatriate your profits. You didn’t
have to worry about labor regulations or labor unions. But now those places in the so-
called �ird World are becoming much tougher. �ey’re either nationalizing their
resources or enforcing their environmental regulations or labor laws. So it’s not as
profitable as it once was.
Meanwhile, in the United States, there are these formations that were once
inaccessible, shale rock in particular. But to gain access to these resources in the
United States and Canada it will be necessary to roll back a lot of the
A major task of China’s leadership is to scour the world for the resources they need to keep the
Chinese economy growing.”
environmental protections and the labor and tax laws that were imposed over the past
50 years. So the oil companies and the gas companies really want to turn this country
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back to what it was before environmentalism became an issue, and make it more like
the way the �ird World was in the 1950s and 60s, with very lax environmental
oversight and labor concerns, so that they can use the very aggressive,
environmentally hazardous techniques to extract oil and gas from these tough
formations.
e360: What developments can you point to that indicate that the U.S. is on the road to this?
Klare: For example, when the Bush Administration was in office, and Congress was under control of Republicans, the 2005 Energy Policy Act exempted hydrofracking
from the Clean Water Act so that oil and gas companies could use hydrofracking with
toxic chemicals and were not covered by the protections that all other kinds of
industrial activities in the United States are subject to.
e360: Talk about the China-African connection and how it fits into the race for what’s left.
Klare: China now is the fastest-growing world economy and it’s very manufacturing- oriented, and China is also building cities and infrastructure very rapidly. All of this is
incredibly resource-intensive. �ey need everything: oil, natural gas, iron, copper,
more exotic things for the electronics that they build, like chromium, lithium, and
palladium. And eventually food, because they’re unable to produce all the food they
need for their population. So one of the major tasks of the Chinese leadership is to
scour the world for all the resources that they need to keep the Chinese economic
machine growing, and this will only become a bigger problem the further you look
into the future.
To give one example, until relatively recently, 1993, China was self-sufficient in oil
production and was until very recently self-sufficient in coal. But now China has to
import half of its petroleum and that will increase to three-quarters. It’s now
importing coal. Now, Africa is one of those areas that the Chinese leadership sees as a
prime source of raw materials, and they think they have an advantage there, because
of the historic animosity of the former colonies towards the West. �ey come in and
say, “We’re going to do things differently. We’re not going to plunder your resources
the way the imperialists did. We’re going to do this in a more cooperative fashion, so
turn to us, let us develop your resources, and we’ll help develop your country.” And
they’re making a tremendous pitch to extract all of Africa’s resources.
e360: And that promise to be the kinder, gentler extractor? What’s your take on that?
Klare: Opinions are divided on how realistic this promise that China is making of offering development to Africa is. To what degree is this really just the icing on the
cake, when really they are no different from the European imperial powers in their
drive to plunder Africa for their own benefit? �ey are building railroads and roads.
But are the roads and
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�e price of things will rise and that will create hardship in people’s lives, and we’re seeing that
today.”
railroads merely to facilitate the shipment of the iron ore and the copper ore to the
coast to be put on ships to be carried to China? �at’s the way it looks to me, more and
more. Moreover, typically the Chinese say, “Well, we will build all of these facilities,
new ports and railroads.” But typically they insist that Chinese state-owned companies
build the railroads, ports, and airports. �ey bring in Chinese workers who live in self-
contained compounds. �ey don’t offer jobs to local people, and so they’re creating a
lot of resentment to China, just as there was once towards western imperialist
exporters.
e360: Minerals, including lithium and platinum, get a lot of attention in your book. �ese are minerals with industrial, military, and commercial applications. It seems
that the difference between easy access minerals and tough access minerals is not the
extraction method but the degree of remoteness, military conflict, and regime
volatility that companies have to contend with.
Klare: Well, yes, it’s a combination of all of those. �e good, easy mining ores are largely gone now. So you have two choices. You can use more aggressive means to
exploit the same old mines — tearing mountains apart they way they do in Chile and
Indonesia for copper, where the mines are so vast you could see them from space, and
you’re getting less and less desirable ores and so you have to treat them more with
arsenic and other poisons. �e consequences to the environment are therefore greater.
So that’s one option. �e other options are to go to the Arctic, and they are talking
about producing some of these minerals in Greenland. For the first time, they’re
moving into Nunavut, the native lands in Canada, far above the Arctic Circle, to get
iron ore.
And the other possibility is to go to places you stayed away from because they were
dangerous, like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or now Afghanistan. Many
people believe that Afghanistan has a tremendous treasure trove of valuable minerals:
copper, iron, lithium, rare earths, and if you’re prepared to bring in an army to protect
them, there’s a lot of minerals there.
e360: And then there are the rare earth elements, with names that are difficult to pronounce, like scandium and promethium. Our cell phones and laptops are chock
full of some of these substances and demand is expected to skyrocket over the next
few years. But right now, China is just about the only country producing them. Is that
going to change, and if so, what are the environmental implications?
LISTEN: Michael Klare on how new technologies increasingly rely on rare earth minerals.
4/22/2021 Global Scarcity: Scramble for Dwindling Natural Resources - Yale E360
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Klare: Well, the thing about rare earths that I learned is that they’re not exactly rare as a percent of the earth’s crust, but they’re not found in concentrated nodes. �ey tend
to be found with a lot of other things, including typically radioactive materials. So you
have to separate them from other minerals you don’t want. China has taken over
production of most of the rare earths. �ey have the concentrations and they are
willing to overlook the environmental consequences. A lot of this is in inner
Mongolia, and they are trying to promote economic development there. And from
what I understand, it’s resulted in terrible environmental devastation of the
surrounding agricultural areas that have been poisoned with the tailings from this
rare earth production. But it was not because they had more of the minerals, but
because they were willing to overlook the environmental hazards involved. Now
they’re tightening up on their controls, and so the supply has gotten tighter.
e360: It seems that one could argue that it’s not the running out of resources that we have to fear, but rather the environmental cost of obtaining them.
Klare: �ere are several things happening all at once. �ere is the future point down the road where things really will be very scarce, and then civilization as we know it
will collapse, unless between now and then we develop new ways of living. I’m talking
about something that could happen
�e young know the bad news already and they’re determined to do something about it.”
in 2050 or farther down the pike. Oil will run out. But between now and then, we will
have other problems. �e price of things will rise and that will create everyday
hardship in people’s lives and we’re seeing that today. But we’ll also see conflict arising
in this race for what’s left. We’re already seeing signs of that in many places, for
example, in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, as China and its neighbors
are increasingly using military force to exert their claims over undersea reserves of oil
and natural gas. So there will be many consequences to this final stage in humanity’s
struggle to gain control over vital resources.
e360: �ere’s a relatively new phenomenon in which countries, mainly in the Persian Gulf, are buying up farmland in poor countries to grow crops for consumption at
home. Saudi Arabia, for instance, has been buying up land in Sudan and Ethiopia.
How have we come to a point where farmland has become a global commodity?
Klare: You know, I can’t help but think that there’s something very cynical and ugly about all of this, but a lot of the people who are in this business, they talk about
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Malthus, future population growth, starvation, climate change, all of these things
making food the most precious commodity of the future — that whoever possesses
land to grow food will be the rich people of the future. �at’s the pitch that they make
to investors, and it is based on the notion that people will be starving and desperate
for food. Now, there are a second group of investors, those from Saudi Arabia, United
Arab Emirates and so on, who say that we will not be able to feed our future
population, and so therefore we will buy farmland in foreign countries to grow food
exclusively for our own population, irrespective of the needs of the people who live in
the food-growing areas. �ey’ll have to fend for themselves, but we’ll provide for our
own people. And this, too, derives from very nightmarish scenarios of what we’ll see in
the future.
MORE FROM YALE e360
Leveling Appalachia: �e Legacy Of Mountaintop Removal Mining
�is video report produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration with MediaStorm takes a first-hand look at
mountaintop removal mining in
Appalachia and what is at stake for the
region’s environment and its people.
WATCH THE VIDEO e360: You say that to head off the global nightmare for the race for what’s left that we’ll need to engage in a race to adapt, and that includes finding substitute materials,
improving efficiency. When I read this part of your book, I was rather surprised at its
optimistic tone. You say you see signs that we’re already in the race to adapt. Talk to
me about that.
Klare: Being around students, they think they know the bad news already and they’re determined to do something about it. �ey want to be in the solutions business. I
think this is a universal phenomenon around the world because I have students in my
classes from virtually every continent now, and they all want to be involved in
developing solutions, and they have a lot of optimism and enthusiasm for this. So it’s
partly that energy that I’m feeling from my students and young people about the
possibilities of positive change. And then I see that there are entrepreneurs who are
coming up with very creative solutions to the problems I describe, who are creating
the alternative modes of producing energy and using materials more efficiently. And I
think that with time they will gain momentum.
Diane Toomey is an award-winning public radio journalist who has worked at Marketplace, the World Vision Report, and Living on Earth, where she was the science editor. Her reporting has won numerous awards, including the American Institute of Biological Sciences' Media Award. She is a regular contributor to Yale e360
and currently is an associate researcher at the PBS science show NOVA. MORE →
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4/22/2021 What are Environmental Ethics and What's Your Role in Saving Nature? - Help Save Nature
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What are Environmental Ethics and What’s Your Role in Saving
Nature? Environmental ethics is a branch of environmental philosophy that
studies the ethical relationship between human beings and the environment. This field has given a new dimension to the topics of
conservation of natural resources and protection of the environment. For more information on environmental ethics, read
this HelpSaveNature article.
4/22/2021 What are Environmental Ethics and What's Your Role in Saving Nature? - Help Save Nature
https://helpsavenature.com/what-is-environmental-ethics 2/8
What are Environmental Ethics?
Environmental ethics is a branch of environmental philosophy that studies the ethical relationship between human beings and the environment. This field has given a new dimension to the topics of conservation of natural resources and protection of the environment. For more information on environmental ethics, read this HelpSaveNature article.
4/22/2021 What are Environmental Ethics and What's Your Role in Saving Nature? - Help Save Nature
https://helpsavenature.com/what-is-environmental-ethics 3/8
4/22/2021 What are Environmental Ethics and What's Your Role in Saving Nature? - Help Save Nature
https://helpsavenature.com/what-is-environmental-ethics 4/8
Environmental Ethics Definition Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its nonhuman contents. -Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The definition of environmental ethics rests on the principle that there is an ethical relationship between human beings and the natural environment. Human beings are a part of the environment and so are the other living beings. When we talk about the philosophical principle that guides our life, we often ignore the fact that even plants and animals are a part of our lives. They are an integral part of the environment and hence cannot be denied their right to live. Since they are an inseparable part of nature and closely associated with our living, the guiding principles of our life and our ethical values should include them. They need to be considered as entities with the right to co-exist with human beings.
Concept The concept of environmental ethics brings out the fact that all the life forms on Earth have the right to live. By destroying nature, we are denying the life forms this right. This act is unjust and unethical. The food web clearly indicates that human beings, plants, animals, and other natural resources are closely linked with each other. All of us are creations of nature and we depend on one another and the environment. Respecting the existence of not just other humans but also the non- human entities, and recognizing their right to live is our primary duty. With environmental ethics, morality extends to the non-human world.
Environmental Ethics as a Field The Earth Day celebration of 1970 was also one of the factors which led to the development of environmental ethics as a separate field of study. This field received impetus when it was first discussed in the academic journals in North America and Canada. Around the same time, this field emerged in Australia and Norway. Scientists like Rachel Carson and environmentalists who led philosophers to consider the philosophical aspect of environmental problems, pioneered in the development of environmental ethics as a branch of environmental philosophy. Today, environmental ethics is a widely discussed topic. It covers aspects such as ethical principles that guide our use of natural resources, our duty to take efforts towards environmental protection, and our moral responsibility towards animals.
Issues in Environmental Ethics
4/22/2021 What are Environmental Ethics and What's Your Role in Saving Nature? - Help Save Nature
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Consumption of Natural Resources Our natural environment is not a storehouse to rob resources from. It is a reserve of resources that are crucial to the existence of life. Their unscrupulous depletion is detrimental to our well-being. We are cutting down forests for making our homes. Our excessive consumption of natural resources continues. The undue use of resources is resulting in their depletion, risking the life of our future generations. Is this ethical? This is an environmental ethics issue.
Destruction of Forests When industrial processes lead to destruction of resources, is it not the industry’s responsibility to restore the depleted resources? Moreover, can a restored environment make up for the original one? Mining processes disrupt the ecological balance in certain areas. They harm the plant and animal life in those regions. Slash- and-burn techniques are used for clearing land, that leads to the destruction of forests and woodland. The land is used for agriculture, but is the loss of so many trees compensated for?
Environmental Pollution Many human activities lead to environmental pollution. The rising human population is increasing the demand for nature’s resources. As the population is exceeding the carrying capacity of our planet, animal and plant habitats are being destroyed to make space for human habitation. Huge constructions (roads and buildings for residential and industrial use) are being made at the cost of the environment. To allow space for these constructions, so many trees have to lose their lives. The animals that thrive in them lose their natural habitats and eventually their lives. However, the cutting down of trees is seldom even considered as loss of lives. Isn’t this unethical?
Harm to Animals Due to habitat loss, animals may enter human settlements, thus posing a threat to the people living there. In some cases, these animals are killed. Secondly, animals serve as food sources of humans, for which they are killed. Also, animal studies cause harm to animals and even their deaths. This destruction has led to the extinction of many animal species. The reduction in the populations of several other animal species continues. How can we deny the animals their right to live? How are we right in depriving them of their habitat and food? Who gave us the right to harm them for our convenience? These are some of the ethical environmental issues that need to be addressed.
The Inherent Value of Non-human Entities
Instrumental Value An important point that the field of environmental ethics is concerned with, is whether non-human beings only have an instrumental value or whether they also have an intrinsic value. Aristotle said that “nature has made all things specifically for the sake of man”, which means non-human beings only have an instrumental value;
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they are meant to serve as ‘instruments’ for human beings. From an anthropocentric point of view (which lays emphasis on human beings), the use of other living elements in nature by humans is only right. Causing them harm or destroying them is wrong only because it eventually affects human life. With this view, cruelty to animals is wrong because it develops insensitivity, and not because animals should not be harmed. Or the felling of trees is wrong because it eventually causes loss of food sources for humans, and not because it is simply unethical.
Intrinsic Value Historian Lynn White Jr. published an essay in 1967, in which he criticized Judeo- Christian thinking as being a primary factor that led human beings to exploit the environment. According to this line of thinking, man is supreme and the nature has been created for him, which gives him the right to exploit it. White also criticized the Church Fathers who maintained that God created man in his own image and gave him the right to rule every being on Earth. According to White, this view promotes the idea that man is separate from nature and not a part of it. This thought leads human beings to exploit nature without realizing its intrinsic value.
A key figure in modern environmental ethics was Aldo Leopold, an American author, scientist, environmentalist, ecologist, forester, and conservationist. His ecocentric views were dominant in the development of modern environmental ethics. Ecocentrism deems the whole ecosystem as important as opposed to anthropocentrism that believes humans to be the most important in the universe. According to ecocentrism, there are no existential differences between the human and non-human entities in nature, which means humans are not more valuable than any other component of the environment. Humans as well as plants, animals, and other constituents of nature have an inherent value.
Theologian and environmental philosopher Holmes Rolston III says that protection of species is our moral responsibility as they have an intrinsic value. In his view, the loss of a species spells disrespect to nature’s process of speciation. According to him, biological processes deserve respect. Thus, any action that translates into disregard for the environment is unethical.
The concept of plant rights is worth discussing in this context. It is the idea of plants having certain rights like humans and animals have. Philosopher Tom Regan argues that animals and human beings are entitled to rights because they are ‘aware’ of their
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existence, which does not apply to plants. Philosopher Paul Taylor is of the view that plants have intrinsic value and that they are entitled to respect but not rights. In his 1972 paper “Should Trees Have Standing?”, Christopher D. Stone said that if corporations can be assigned rights, so should trees.
Our Moral Responsibility Another important point in relation to environmental ethics is of our moral responsibility to preserve nature for our future generations. By causing environmental degradation and depletion of resources, we are risking the lives of future generations. Is it not our duty to leave a good environment for them to live in? Non-renewable energy resources are fast-depleting and sadly, it isn’t possible to replenish them. This means, they may not be available for the future generations. We need to strike a balance between our needs and the availability of resources, so that the forthcoming generations are also able to benefit from their use.
We are morally obliged to consider the needs of even the other elements of our environment. They include not just other human beings, but also plants and animals. It is only ethical to be fair to these elements and make a responsible use of natural resources. Environmental ethics try to answer the question of whether human beings have any moral obligation towards the non-human entities in nature. For the sake of development and convenience, is it morally right to burn fuels though pollution is caused? Is it morally right to continue with technological advances at the cost of the environment? Climate change is known to have a negative impact on plant diversity. It is a fact that the increasing pollution levels are hazardous for not only humans but also for plants and animals. Given this, isn’t it our moral responsibility to protect the environment? We have certain duties towards the environment. Our approach towards other living entities should be based on strong ethical values. Even if the human race is considered as the main constituent of the environment, animals and plants are in no way less important. They have a right to get a fair share of resources and lead a safe life.
Environmental Ethics and Religion Different religions have their own theories of how the world was created and in their own ways, encourage the ideas of protecting the environment or preserving nature because of the association of natural elements with the Supreme Power that created them. In some religions, certain plants or animals are worshiped considering them as sacred or symbols of a particular deity. Nature worship is a part of many religious and spiritual practices. This goes on to say that all religions express concern towards the environment and lay importance on its non-human constituents.
Radical Ecology A step further from environmental ethics is radical ecology, which says that it may not be enough to extend ethics to non-human elements of the environment and that it is necessary to bring changes in the way we live and function. Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess classified environmentalism as shallow and deep. While shallow ecologists follow anthropocentrism, deep ecologists recommend the development of a new eco-philosophy. They are of the view that non-human elements have an intrinsic worth which is not dependent on their utility for humans. They believe in the need to implement ways to reduce human intervention in the non-human world that leads to the destruction of biodiversity. According to Naess, humans should broaden their idea of ‘self’ to include other life forms. In his eco- philosophy, ‘transpersonal ecology’, Australian philosopher Warwick Fox says that the field of environmental ethics is not limited to realizing our moral obligations towards the environment. It is about realizing what he calls ecological consciousness. Some may think that the principles of deep ecology are not sufficient to address environmental issues, but advocates of this ideology believe that once a state of ‘environmental consciousness’ is attained, humans will feel obligated to protect the environment.
Be it due to the scientific understanding of our environment or due to religious views that advocate the need for environmental protection, what’s most important is that human beings realize their connection with nature.
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Author
Yue Maggie Zhou
Assistant Professor of Strategy, Ross
School of Business, University of
Michigan
Close
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
When some US firms move production overseas, they also offshore their pollution
May 18, 2017 9.01pm EDT
On April 22, as protesters swelled Earth Day rallies in U.S. cities and around the world, President
Trump tweeted that he was “committed to keeping our air and water clean but always remember that
economic growth enhances environmental protection. Jobs matter!” His message was eerily similar to
assertions by governments in developing countries that environmental standards are less important
than attracting jobs.
Indeed, over the last few decades many developing countries have adopted loose environmental
standards to lure foreign firms to move production there. However, an emerging body of research
shows that policies like this also bring heavy pollution to the host countries.
In a recent study, my co-author Xiaoyang Li and I found that a significant number of U.S. firms
reduce their pollution at home by offshoring production to poor and less regulated countries. The
greening of U.S. manufacturing over the past several decades may be partially caused by a growing
flow of “brown” imports from poor countries.
Cleaner at home, dirty abroad
Heavy gray smog blankets northeastern China, including Beijing and Tianjin, on Dec. 18, 2016
during a five-day air pollution ‘red alert.’ NASA Earth Observatory
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A “jobs-first” policy can add to serious environmental challenges in the host country. For example,
one recent study calculates that 17 to 36 percent of four major air pollutants emitted in China come
from production for export. Among these export-related emissions, about 21 percent come from the
production of goods for the United States.
Deep knowledge, daily, in The Conversation's newsletter
Studies like this suggest that trade can potentially redistribute environmental footprints. This can
happen via two pathways. One is for “dirty” firms in rich countries to stay out of the entire value chain
that contains the polluting activities. In this case, some rich country customers will stop consuming
the “dirty” products, which is good for the global environment. Others will keep consuming “dirty”
products imported from poor and less regulated countries.
Another way is for firms in rich countries to keep selling the “dirty” products but redesign their
production networks. They will offshore production (and jobs) in the “dirty” segment of the value
chain to poor countries. They will then import the “dirty” unfinished products from poor countries for
further domestic processing in the clean segment of the value chain.
Unfortunately, existing studies have not been able to tease apart these two pathways. To find out if
some U.S. companies were taking the second route, we obtained data from the U.S. Census Bureau
and the Environmental Protection Agency about trade, production and pollution for more than 8,000
U.S. firms with 18,000 U.S. plants.
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We first found that of all goods imported by U.S. manufacturing firms (not wholesaler or retailers),
the share produced in low-wage countries rose from 7 percent in 1992 to 23 percent in 2009. At the
same time, toxic air emissions from manufacturing industries in the United States fell by more than
half. Industries that experienced the greatest increase in imports from low-wage countries include
printing, apparel and textile, furniture, and rubber and plastics. These industries also experienced
some of the largest drops in air pollution in the United States.
Second, using this unprecedentedly detailed data, we obtained some interesting findings at the firm
and plant level. We found that as U.S. firms imported more goods from low-wage countries, their
plants released fewer toxic emissions on American soil. In addition, their U.S. plants shifted
production to less-polluting industries, produced less waste, and spent less on pollution abatement.
In sum, these firms were improving their own environmental performance by shifting to less-
polluting segment of the value chain domestically and moving more-polluting activities overseas.
To our relief, we found that not all U.S. firms chose to offshore their pollution. In particular, firms
that are more productive and invest more in R&D and brand equity offshore less pollution. These
firms may find it less costly to renovate production technology domestically to comply with stringent
environmental standards. They may also find it more rewarding to do so because consumers become
more loyal to their brand for their socially responsible behavior at home.
Changing firms’ incentives
U.S. companies that offshore pollution are not violating environmental laws either at home or in their
host countries. Indeed, rebalancing their global production is a logical response to higher
environmental compliance costs in the United States.
However, to the extent that U.S. firms can choose either to purchase cheap and “dirty-to-make” goods
from low-wage countries or to produce them under stringent environmental standards at home, they
are making a strategic decision about the private costs of production compared to the public (and
international) costs of pollution. Companies that offshore pollution to less-regulated countries are
taking advantage of those nations’ lower environmental and labor standards and letting the host
countries bear the associated social costs.
In this May 1973 view of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania skyline, steel plants line both sides of the Monongahela River. John
Alexandrowicz, NARA/Wikipedia
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Plastic Pollution Manufacturing Offshoring developing countries US environmental policy
Unfortunately, it is not always easy to induce companies to adopt higher standards for their
operations in developing countries. After Nike was first reported to have unsafe and abusive working
conditions at its foreign plants, it took the company almost a decade to announce that it would raise
wages, increase monitoring and adopt more stringent air quality standards in its factories overseas.
Similarly, Foxconn – a key supplier to Apple – has incurred heavy criticism over its labor practices in
China. The company reportedly has improved its working conditions there, but it has also diversified
into other low-wage nations where regulations are more lax, including Malaysia, Mexico, Brazil,
Vietnam and Indonesia.
Reward social responsibility
In a global market where companies compete fiercely across national boundaries, governments
should coordinate closely to maintain a regulatory framework that incentivizes firms to undertake
more socially responsible actions. Participating in trade agreements with strong environmental
requirements, and in global coalitions such as those proposed at the United Nations Climate Change
Conferences, is one way to coordinate. Unfortunately, some of the world’s largest economies seem to
be stepping in the opposite direction.
Jobs are important for both developed and developing countries. In the face of globalization, however,
national leaders should focus more on jobs that are sustainable and do not come at the expense of the
environment.
Before you go...
A Bangladeshi worker throws a washed rawhide onto a pile inside a factory at the highly polluted Hazaribagh tannery area
on the banks of the River Buriganga in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Aug. 26, 2014. Bangladesh annually exports millions of dollars
of leather goods to some 70 countries, including the U.S. and Japan. AP Photo/A.M. Ahad
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- BMGT 496 - Week 7 Citations
- Bibliography
- Barrabi - Starbucks serves up new employee benefits to lure workers in hot US job market _ Fox Business
- Brusseau - Chapter14_TheGreenOffice_EconomicsandtheEnvironment (1)
- Structure Bookmarks
- Part
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- Link
- Span
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- Chapter 14: The Green Office: Economics and the Environment from The Business Ethics Workshop was adapted by Saylor Academy and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license without attribution as requested by the work's original creator or licensor.
- Clelland - Stepping Towards Sustainable Business - An Evaluation of Waste Minimization Practices in US Manufacturing
- Cramer - Baristas at Starbucks Accuse Service Company of Abuse and Pay Gaps - The New York Times
- Derouin - Deforestation_ Facts, Causes & Effects _ Live Science
- Grant - Time's Up Comes for McDonald's
- Perdue Farms announces animal care changes
- Stone - Fracking Is Dangerous To Your Health -- Here's Why
- The Needs of 7 billion People - Depletion of Natural Resources
- Toomey - Global Scarcity_ Scramble for Dwindling Natural Resources - Yale E360
- What are Environmental Ethics and What's Your Role in Saving Nature_ - Help Save Nature
- Zhou - When some US firms move production overseas, they also offshore their pollution
