How do we balance economic stability with environmental sustainability? This is the million-dollar question. How can we come up with a solution that allows individual freedom while imposing limitations in order to protect the environment? What role should the government play, if any? Can we rely on individual responsibility? Is there even a solution where someone does not get hurt? Where does true responsibility lie?
In 1976, RCRA, the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, was passed. That same year the U.S. Government ordered GE to dredge the Hudson River in order to remove PCBs from the soil. GE finally started to dredge the Hudson in 2008. What does this say about the government, its people, and the corporation? It seems as if the corporation is fighting a surrogate of the people (i.e., the government). While the people may blame the government for not acting or not pushing the issue, it is actually the responsibility of the people to push their government to action. On the other hand, the corporation is fighting to survive in the wild frenzy of a global economy. The corporation tries to balance government regulations and global competition and all the while trying to make a profit. But who is responsible for the clean-up and can the use of PCBs be justified?
To start with the latter, PCBs were a cheap, efficient conductor used in many electronics from post World War II to 1976. A glance at a history textbook will show you that during this period American business was booming and, you could assume, PCBs made a contribution to this. Hypothetically speaking, if we traveled back to post World War II America and made a public service announcement about all of the dangerous chemicals being used at the time (e.g., PCBs, smoking, asbestos, etc.), would they listen? Would economic prosperity win over environmental sustainability? If we consider this issue realistically, Americans in the 1950’s wouldn’t believe the dangers. The environmental movement would not arise until twenty years later when the effects of the chemicals surfaced. Despite our ability of forethought, it is still hard to believe “theories” without hard evidence. As a counterpoint, consider what would happen if Americans in the 1950’s did stop using PCBs, what would America look like today? It would be reasonable to assume that the technology we have today (e.g., the plasma screen TV, the iPhone, and even this MacBook that I am typing on) would not exist. We might have TVs, but they would be a luxury. While our environment would cleaner, who would stop the rest of the world from using hazardous chemicals? Would the United States lose its world power as the “leader of the free world”? Or, if we were optimistic, would the world follow our example? Then, anyone who did not produce goods through an environmentally friendly way would be frowned upon; environmental conservation would exist in international laws but also as social norms…but this is a very optimistic outlook.
Since many companies used PCBs, dioxins, and pesticides (whether they did it out of frugal economic spending or ignorance of the aftereffects does not matter now), we are still left with a mess to clean up. Who is responsible? If the company created the pollution, it would seem logical that they, being the cause, should clean up the aftereffects. But what if they do not? Is the government responsible to make sure the companies do their job? Is this government’s role? If this is outside the jurisdiction of the government, then the people should be responsible. But how can they act if they are ignorant of the issue or feel they would hurt themselves (usually economically) if they act on this issue? Is it moral to wipe our hands clean by saying “it was the generation before us, we did not cause it,” and leave it for the next generation?
At the end of this debate there are the same recurring themes: economic stability and prosperity, environmental sustainability and conservation, and public versus private responsibility/ethics.
