This week in seminar we discussed the policies that integrate societies with the environment and human activities with environmental issues. One of the main problems is recycling when it comes to the economy. Although recycling is a great thing for the environment, its closes the loose which increases costs of products because there is less of a need for new products. Society must operate accept that the economy must operate within limits and that resources will not last forever. Very few countries however act this way.
We also learned about the UN World Commission on Environment and Development and its Chair, Gro Harlem Bruhtdland. She created the first applied definition of sustainability, which is that development must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. I think this definition is a good basis to what sustainability it is, but it needs more. There are too many loopholes such as what are the needs that are necessary and how can we be sustainable.
We also discussed that in order to reach true sustainability we must work with society, the economy, and the environment. Reaching happiness in all three of those categories is nearly impossible. All three have demanding needs and for people to willing to sacrifice certain items in each category is difficult. Also, within each of these three main categories are many subcategories such as jobs, energy, social justice, and species survival. There are so many variable to create true sustainability, or at least the way people are currently thinking.
In class we also went over the triple bottom theory that means that policy decisions can be made by individuals, corporations, and government. This is a very influential concept when dealing with sustainability. Corporations are some of the greatest of criminals when it comes to harming the environment. If corporations affect policy, it will be difficult to pass policies that limit corporations in order to help the environment.
After the infinite sink theory was overruled, new theories came into play such as the end-of-pipe treatment, pollution prevention, design for environment, and sustainable development. The bad thing about these steps is that it is difficult to complete each one. End-of-pipe and pollution prevention are important and need to be accomplished, but very few people consider the next two steps. Fixing our mistakes is a major concern, but we should also be trying to prevent future mistake.
Another major problem about obtaining sustainability is outsourcing. There are laws in the US to prevent unclear work environments and dumping of chemicals, and other measures harmful to the environment, but other countries do not have such laws. Companies can basically do whatever they want in countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia where they have no constraints. This needs to be stopped. Either other countries must take an initiative and stop these corporations, or corporations must be dealt with in the US.
Lastly, we discussed the UN Conference on Environment and Development and the UN Millennium Conference, both which are very disappointing. Countries keep coming together, promising to reduce waste and their energy usage and not a single country can deliver. Instead of making ridiculous and far-fetched pledges, countries should make logical, and obtainable goals, and actually accomplish them.

            Achieving proper balance in life and society is to some extent the ultimate goal in human life. Not letting your work or your play time or anything else take over your life is a challenge that everyone deals with. Prosperity would be ubiquitous if people could only accord the proper level of interest to all of the right things. For our world and our class there are three things to be balanced: the economy, the society and the environment – the triple bottom-line.

            As great as it would be forget about this balance, unfortunately that option is out. Disregarding the environment is poisoning our very existence but without an economy and the ability to purchase what we need to survive humans also face dire problems. Unfortunately perfectly satisfying any of these without disregarding the others is impossible; ultimately sacrifices need to be made. Only with a healthy balance of each of the three is sustainability possible, and when introducing other sets of threes, such as the differing interests of individuals, corporations, and government, things get far more complicated. Once again however balancing these differing interests is essential.

Truly the only way change is possible is through submission to a social contract by everyone from all of their different roles. Agreements such as Kyoto may not have been completely successful, sadly in part due to reluctance from our own United States, but it is these types of measures that will make change ultimately possible. When looking at basic game theory you can see that while it is in everyone’s own best interest to act with the environment in mind, as long as it the individuals own role is not the tipping point they won’t care; someone else will do it.

Bloomberg has done a lot to force people into acting in their own best interests between the soda ban, the indoor clean air act and countless others, and while I can absolutely understand the argument from those opposed there is no other way to see real change. Humans are not and never have been a species with especially strong self-control and much of our animalistic lack of processing still adversely affects our society. As I’ve discussed before truly most of the world’s environmental problems stem from seeing problems from a limited scope, for if an issue such as fracking were examined from a scope of a hundred years rather than 5 years (if that), the logical course of action in choosing to benefit the environment would be obvious. Sadly however, that is just not how humans seem to think.

Creating a social contract makes people follow what is in their best interest even if it isn’t for their immediate benefit, for it is for the benefit of society and as members of society, themselves. To truly deal with all parts of the triple bottom line, society must come to a consensus and agree to stick to it, electing a higher power to manage them. Sadly the harsh polarization in our current political world makes this easier said than done but hopefully when this disruptive trend comes to a close and the dust settles our government can see the importance in works such as the Kyoto protocol and more generally in balancing environmental interests with economic ones.

Weekly Journal 6

            This week, we talked about the policies part of the arch. (About time, methinks, because it was getting so gloomy and sad in MHC 200.) One of the things that struck out to me the most were the clips of the Nike sneaker sweat shops and Guyanese independent gold miners, and what little we could do about it. We could boycott whichever companies generating the most negative PR, but what of it? Other companies do it, too. There is no ideological change caused, and I doubt anything would come of boycotting a single company, even when people stick to it.

This reminded me of Naes’ Deep Ecology. Shallow Ecology is environmental ethics for the benefit of the affluent few, while Deep Ecology is for all living things. Perhaps this distinction could be made for human right, as well. I brought up a point in class that I want to elaborate on—that whatever we do as consumers will probably have no effect on the large-scale operation of corporations, and whatever we do is really to clean up the blood on our hands than to actually help these people.

For example: the blood diamonds. Professor Alexandratos said that we now are going for diamonds from reputable sources because of the negative PR it generated. But what of it? We’re merely treating what we the consumers chose rather than what the laborers do. It’s similar to end-of-pipe treatment: there is no radical change in the manufacturing process. (In this case, manufacturing process refers to the actual process as well as the conditions that brought on these manufacturing to the struggling people.) If we truly cared about the poor people laboring, dying, and poisoning themselves to meet our demand for gold and drapes and fineries, we would be trying to change the societies themselves rather than what comes out of it.

Some people argue that well, without the jobs we are providing for them, they are in a bad place without a job rather than a bad place with a job. Some people argue that they don’t want this kind of blood on their (gold-ringed) hands, and would rather not buy from the poor independent workers. And then they leave it at that. I suppose the first group of people is worse (since they don’t seem to extend empathy toward other humans very well), but the second kind of people isn’t helping, either. They’re merely removing themselves from the problem.

Well, fine, yes. They can shift the gold and diamond and garment industry, but only by consolidating the workers under a brand they can trust. But are they willing to pay the extra costs of having middlemen and humanely treated team of workers? I don’t plan on holding the breath for any corporations to cut into their exorbitant profits to keep the prices reasonable for the buyers. Look at the brands that sell a worsted t-shirt labeled “US Made” and “sweatshop-free” for $30. I’m sure they can cut into profits and make their clothes slightly more reasonable. But they won’t, because of the nature of the organizations. (Unless we go for an industry-wide boycott—but we discussed in class how that’s hard to do.)

(I also have a thought I’ve yet to fully form– perhaps “good-for-you-workers-and-environment” brands don’t want to lower costs partly because of the “brand image” they’re trying to sell. I think environmentalism and philanthropy became a mark of the affluent somehow, especially among the wealthy liberal college-educated crowd. I think that’s why people living near TriBeCa shop at Whole Foods and go for organic food chains named “Organique”. It’s a mark of who they are, how caring they are despite their privileges. Will they be so willing to buy worsted t-shirt labeled “US Made” and “sweatshop-free” if it became so cheap that, say, the middle-aged woman from Harlem with empty gaps in her smile could afford it? What if it’s so cheap that it’s become ubiquitous in poor parts of NYC, almost as ubiquitous as Hollister is among frat boys? It’s an exaggeration, for the sake of making a point, but still. I wonder.)

Now we’re approaching a new region of the arc – the solutions. Things are already beginning to come together. We spent the first section of the class talking about the environmental problems created by people, corporations, and governments. We’ve stepped back through longer timescales and to larger regions, until we reached the problems of global air and water pollution. Here we become even more abstract.

People, and the institutions they create, generally worry about short term before short term. So if one option is cheaper in the short term, then that is what will be done – barring intervention. Taking and processing natural resources is almost always cheaper than recovering materials from waste, and so that’s why we haven’t pursued these processes with greater fervor. Valorization and “closing the loop” will not happen until resources in nature become more expensive than materials recovered from waste.

This will happen on its own eventually, but the transition will be yet another problem that will cause strife and instability amid many others we will undoubtedly encounter over the next hundred years or so. Eventually new industries based on resource recovery will emerge, but we would prefer to start the process earlier so that the infrastructure is in place. We could do his by taxing raw resource production and subsidizing resource recovery. Unfortunately, many important metals and minerals are found primarily in foreign countries. We can tax imports of these materials, but then we are asking other countries to buy them up instead (at least in the minds of politicians).

At some point we need to step up to the plate and make a commitment. This is something we can take advantage of right now, if we are willing to invest in our infrastructure. Many parts of our country are opposed to deficit spending, but its use to increase GDP and invest in our future seems like a good idea in a time of low growth and high unemployment.

This is just one step in the process of creating a sustainable economy, but it would give us a jump-start in the process of sustainable development. With new infrastructure we can increase efficiency and take advantage of our greater understanding of humans and the environment.

If voluntary standards are ineffective for self-interested industry, it seems just as likely that they would be ineffective for self-interested nations. On the international scale, all standards are voluntary, at least until other nations put sanctions on trade or threaten war. International agreements cannot be enforced unless they are tied to some sort of material “carrot” or “stick”. Are environmental agreements ever tied to trade agreements?  It seems that such an arrangement, if it were diplomatically possible, might do more to help than UN declarations.

Sustainable development requires a significant investment, and it seems like it would be very hard for developing nations to acquire the capital (and see that it is put to use). But a nation that is currently developing represents a wonderful opportunity to build an infrastructure that is modern according to our current knowledge and understanding of the environment – it is almost the ability to skip a step in development that first-world nations went through a hundred years ago. Unfortunately it seems like developing nations will have an extremely hard time fulfilling the triple bottom line – economic growth is usually the first priority, along with social stability. Environmental regulations are meaningless if the black market operates freely.

William Arguelles

Spiro Alexandratos

Seminar 3

October 15, 2012

Opinion Paper 6

            So breaking with my tradition of pointing out the “supervillian” corporation and then ranting about how ridiculous the supervillian is, I think I’m going to focus on something else for once. Not because there wasn’t a supervillian this time, because Lord knows that Nike came across as pure unadulterated evil in their treatment of those Bengali workers. I mean I’ve sadly come to expect corporations outsourcing their manufacturing to impoverished countries to increase their profits. But to me, Nike is only occupying a niche made available by the utter neglect and economic exploitation of the world’s population.

Nike however, decided that just outsourcing wasn’t exploitative enough, so they decided to trick some poor Bengali men and women into signing these contracts which basically treated them like 17^th century indentured servants.  These men and women would sign contracts in a language they couldn’t read that would have them move to another country (I think it was Malaysia) and then forfeit their passports to the company. Without a passport, the workers were effectively trapped in the country working for Nike until they fulfilled their contract and bought back their own passports with all the money Nike had paid them over the three or so years they worked for Nike. In short, Nike is essentially acting as a New World plantation owner, tricking the poor starving peasants into signing years of their lives away to work on plantations in horrific conditions.

Now, Nike is obviously in the wrong here. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights among practically every State’s constitution and/or bill of rights states that slavery and indentured servitude is illegal and immoral. There is no excuse for what Nike is doing to these men and women, and they should be punished for it to the fullest extent of the law. However, like the 17^th century plantation owner, Nike is more emblematic of the underlying problem; the despicable living conditions and abject poverty in these states that drives these workers to sign such horrible deals.

For example, let’s look at Bangladesh, the most densely populous nation in the world. There are some significant downsides to being ridiculously overcrowded, so that millions of Bengali people live in abject poverty. I remember watching a Natural Geographic special about these Bengali women who lived in these villages comprised of a bunch of hastily constructed makeshift shacks on the side of a major thoroughfare and were basically a harem of prostitutes for the passing truckers. The women were brought there at the age of eight or nine, sold by relatives into this slavery, and forced to have sex with anyone who paid their madam about twenty U.S. dollars. After however many years of this abuse, the women were granted their “freedom” to make money themselves,  but they still had to pay a ridiculous exorbitant rent. I think all and all, the women made approximately a dollar or two for each John.

I bring this up because it illustrates my point that while Nike is obviously wrong, to these workers, it could appear as an escape from their horrible lives. Yes, Nike should pay their workers more than two dollars an hour, but when sixteen percent of the world makes approximately a dollar a day, those two dollars might sound like living in the lap of luxury. And if the person has to choose between having barely consensual sex with passing truckers or making shoes in a factory they’re told is much nicer then their shack, I can see droves of people signing up for this without a second thought.

Praying on the weak of the world is disgusting, and Nike should be ashamed of doing it. But what is truly horrific is that such a large portion of the world lives in such a deplorable state. Like the plantation owners, Nike is morally corrupt, but the only reason their practice even exists is because the conditions are so terrible that signing away three years of your life to make shoes for little to no pay sounds better than starving in the streets or being a sex slave. It’s easy to say Nike is wrong, but Nike is only a symptom of the much greater problems plaguing the world.

Emotional engagement is important, yet it can be tricky. In order to be successful, an individual must find a balance between using your emotions as your motivation to fuel you actions and having your emotions cloud or judgment, creating bias and altering your actions.

Outsourcing is an extremely controversial issue. However, I believe that we need outsourcing and I do not see a better alternative. We all need the items created in third world countries, especially now because practically everything is made in third world countries. When I go to school everyday, everything I wear was probably produced outside of the United States. The only reason for this is because it is simply cheaper, and I don’t see anything wrong with this. Yes, in certain scenarios like Nike, the conditions are horrible and unacceptable, but those are most likely few and far between. Efforts should be made to create better living conditions for these people, but the fact remains, the benefits we get from outsourcing will never lead us to want to stop it. No one wants to be paying probably fifty percent more than what they are paying now if items were to be made domestically.

Something I found intriguing was the idea that world leaders recognized the importance of voluntary action. This is ridiculous that this is coming out now, but even more upsetting is how about the importance of mandating certain actions. Why not increase the deposit laws a little? People buy these sodas and do not recycle them half the time. Why not make the deposit a significant amount of money to force the consumers to want to recycle their bottles? If they decide the increase in price is too much to pay for soda, then that is good as well because it will help reduce obesity. These people could then drink water instead of sodas and other sugary beverages. Obviously the beverage companies will not agree to an increase in the deposit laws because sales will decline. The government should give these companies significant tax breaks to convince them to allow it. Another possible idea is just making it a law to recycle bottles, punishable by jail time or hefty fines. This is an example of mandatory action which would be much more effective than voluntary, the only problem being it is much less realistic.

Voluntary action is nice in theory, but few actually take action. In order for voluntary action to be effective, you need masses of people to contribute and take action. You need organized groups and recruitment. A big problem is that many working people do not have the time or at least think they do not have the time to help out. But guess what, if you do not help out, the world is going to go to shit and you won’t have that time anyway. I should not be talking because I am one of those people that understands the problems but does nothing to help. I need to change my attitude. We all do.