American Military University - EVSP508: Environmental Ethics Week 6 Forum Topic: Who Owns the Air?

The Assignment
This week we consider the topics of pollution of the water, soil, and air and also the contemporary topic of climate change and energy policy. There are so many excellent essays to cover this week ranging from discussion on the dirtiest city on the planet to ethics surrounding global climate change. What were your thoughts as you read through these essays? Is there any guidance provided as you synthesize these essays on who owns the common pool resources, and is ownership even necessary for management and preservation of these resources? After reading these two chapters on pollution and climate, I find I have more questions than answers. What were some of the major questions you had after reading? Keep in mind that we are in a course on environmental ethics and not the science of pollution or global climate. If you decide to argue these concepts, be sure your posts are well researched and properly cited. Focus on academic research on the topics and not common media sources. Identifying the nature of the source of the information you have researched is actually a critical focus for all of your graduate level research.

My forum posting
After reading the two chapters on pollution and climate, I think the biggest question I have (and had, actually, before the reading) are, Why do some American corporate and political leaders insist on denying the existence of, and contributors to anthropogenic climate change, or for many of those that dont engage in such denial why dont they comprehend or why do they refuse to acknowledge how seriously detrimental climate change is to the future of life on earth? For cynical me, it seems that underlying the answer to those questions is an almost incomprehensible and abhorrent attitude of gross entitlement, selfishness, and greed possessed by many of those people. It is that assessment of leadership persons even though they are probably a numerical minority that serves a primary driver of my advocacy for environmental pragmatism. No amount of moralizing or pointing out their obviously unethical behavior is going to convince executives at Massey Energy to stop mountaintop removal mining; or executives at Perdue to switch from caged to free ranging poultry; or executives at Halliburton to abide by strict regulation of methodology in, and limits on amount of, hydrofracturing for natural gas. In other words, people of such moral paucity (who I contend do all inclusively or in the great majority actually understand that anthropogenic climate change is real and that their industrial practices are significantly contributing to it) also fail to understand or refuse to concede the legitimacy of Traxlers (2002) premise for duty to act responsibly: Given that it is highly likely that climate change will cause serious distress to large portions of the future human population, all those who can do something about it are under an obligation to deal with this threat to future humanity. Our obligation comes from two sorts of universal moral duties: a duty of non-maleficence [sic]--not doing wrongful harm to others--and a duty to assist those who need help in order to avoid harm and suffering. (internet site pg 1) The essay by Monbiot (2006) gives a fairly understandable explanation as to why people of wealth and power, i.e. the professional classes, willfully ignore climate change or minimize its effects: they have the most freedom to lose and the least to gain from an attempt to restrain it. (p. 459). However, I have never been able to wrap my brain around this: if the leadership in business and government agree to policy and regulations that properly minimize pollution and regulate resource depletion, the financial costs to those people will in no way decrease their standard of living in the short term, and in the long term will improve the standard of living for all people, and all life on earth.

Piling onto my confused consternation: those same executives invest huge sums of cash and effort into creating and perpetuating front organizations that have only one purpose the convincing spread of disinformation to create public doubt and thereby hamper passage of regulations and policies that mitigate pollution and slow climate change. From previous reading and viewing of news stories and analyses, Id been aware of the better known lobbying groups posing as reputable think tanks or academic organizations, like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity. However, reading Monbiots essay really brought home just how perniciously successful some of these organizations have become, and to what abysmal depths executives, politicians and at least one media company leader (Fox News head Rupert Murdoch) will go to increase their billions of dollars in wealth and to impoverish millions or billions of people. I do hold some hope that good leaders in industry, academia, government and the nonprofit sector will win the hearts and minds of a majority of American people, who will in turn vote for and support policies and regulations, and act in new and far more responsible ways, that stop the trajectory towards annihilation that life is currently on. By new ways, I refer to a dramatic decentralization of food and energy production and distribution, as described by Rising Tide North Americas (2011) essay introduction: Rising Tide North Americas (RTNA) mission is to phase out fossil fuel usage make a just transition to sustainable ways of living. RTNA firmly believes that the means by which our society reduces greenhouse gases are as important as the ends of preventing climate change and organizes against climate solutions that harm communities or the environment. RTNA strives to bring an earthcentered, global justice analysis to the climate change movement, to support community-based solutions to the climate crisis, and to end corporate control over systems of food and energy production, land management, and other areas that influence climate change. (p. 471) Is it too late? Have the truly evil lords of Mordor (Big Oil; King Coal; the Defense Industry; Banks, maybe especially The World Bank) and Isengard (Congress) already sent the world irreversibly toward virtual or complete ruin? I suppose I and/or my classmates will still be alive to find out! References Trexler, M. (2002) Fair chore division for climate change. Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6395/is_1_28/ai_n28933411/?tag=content;col1 Gardiner, S. (2011) Ethics and global climate change. In L. P. Pojman & P. Pojman (Eds.), Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application (6th ed., pp. 437-457). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Inc. (Original work published 2004). Monbiot, G. (2011) The denial industry. In L. P. Pojman & P. Pojman (Eds.), Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application (6th ed., pp. 458-471). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Inc. (Original work published 2006). Rising Tide North American. (2011). Hoodwinked in the hothouse: false solutions to climate change. In L. P. Pojman & P. Pojman (Eds.), Environmental ethics: Readings in theory and application (6th ed., pp. 471-480). Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Inc. (Original work retrieved from www.risingtidenorthamerica.org).