Thought of the Day: Ignore the Environment: It will go away!
According to Reuters, the state of Alaska is getting ready to sue the US Interior Department's recent decision to classify polar bears as an endangered animal.
Okay, let's get this straight. Alaska's Republican Governor, Sarah Palin, says that protection of polar bears, whose populations have been steadily falling as a result of a rapidly warming arctic,
would be "unwarranted" and bad for business development.
Today the price of a barrel of oil rose to another high, above $130 for the first time. I know that this causes many to think that drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, is a necessary procedure.
According to Reuters, the state of Alaska is getting ready to sue the US Interior Department's recent decision to classify polar bears as an endangered animal.
Okay, let's get this straight. Alaska's Republican Governor, Sarah Palin, says that protection of polar bears, whose populations have been steadily falling as a result of a rapidly warming arctic,
would be "unwarranted" and bad for business development.
Today the price of a barrel of oil rose to another high, above $130 for the first time. I know that this causes many to think that drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, is a necessary procedure.
However, rather than selling the farm, let's get at the root of the problem: rampant corporate greed. The big oil players, most notably the behemoth ExxonMobil, has seen its profit nearly triple since the invasion of Iraq, from 32 up to 82 billion dollars in 2007. The fact that this rise of profit comes concurrently to 4-dollar-a-gallon gas prices begs the question: how much of this energy crisis is not entirely manufactured?
So, let's get our priorities straight. We can deny reality, insisting that the bears are fine, and continue to let big business wreck our ecology and economy. Or we can face the facts and start working to reverse the path of our country.
The bears have become the symbol of an increasingly fragile world. If we break it, we pay for it. That's something big business is supposed to know.
16 comments:
I'm sorry but the fact that the state of Alaska would sue to get polar bears removed from the Endangered Species list is, frankly, disturbing. Since when can economics and politics override the simple facts of the environment. If a species is endangered, then it is endangered, there should be no consideration of whether such a label is 'bad for business', just the science. I also agree completely about the oil prices. How can these companies get away with such high profits when 1) they are taking money directly out of the hands of consumers, simply because they sell a 'necessary' commodity; 2)when there are starving people in the world; and 3) when global warming, as a result of their product, is still such a huge problem.
Firstly, I'd like to see the models that they used to determine the "endangerdness" of the bears in question - that seems to be the crux of the issue here. Just because the government says that they are endangered doesn't mean anything unless that statement has been peer-reviewed and approved. Perhaps it has been, but I'd like to see the rationale.
As for your point about gas prices, in the last year oil prices have about doubled. Have gas prices? America is still paying less for gas than much of the rest of the world.
Besides, how is a company being greedy for taking advantage of a windfall? This is a normal thing for companies in a capitalist free market to do, and I don't see why oil companies are any different
Iberk speaks wisdom.
Rishubhav: If you consult the peer-reviewed studies on polar bear populations, you will see no question as to whether the polar bear is in grave danger. Breakups in arctic ice has forced many bears to swim 50 miles or more in search of food and land. However, the issue transcends the polar bear itself. To deny the fact that this species is threatened is to deny global warming itself. This is why I make an issue of it.
If the answer to the problem is just swim 50 miles to the north, then it's okay. But if they have to swim 50 miles to the north once every decade, then there's the problem. Many people will just say that the population remains constant for now and dismiss the problem. But that is complete ignorance because: 1.) if they have to go 50 miles to north lets say every 20 years, they will eventually run out of space. This would literally wipe out the entire species at once. 2.) This is proof of global warning, whether you like it or not.
If you look at the total population of the bears, the population is not shrinking and they are not endangered. Yet, the existance of the entire population can be wiped out if we can't find a way to improve global warming. The species is completely endangered
The thing that politcians fail to comprehend is that drilling in ANWR would significantly decrease our dependency on foreign oil, while giving us "time" to develop new, possibly cleaner, alternative forms of energy.
First off, Rishubhav, your point about our country having lower gas prices than the rest of the world is not necessarily true because we subsidize oil immensely. Thus, if we stopped subsidizing it, we would be paying the same prices as the rest of the world at the pump not tax time. The subsidies are there to protect the petroleum industry and trick consumers into believing that petroleum prices are not as high as "they could be."
A corporation should not be apathetic to the rest of the world simply because it will make more money that way. Though they are built to make money, (just look at the commercials about the People of America's Oil and Natural Gas Industry that are essentially advertisements for drilling in ANWR,) they need to see that they are destroying this beautiful planet via global warming and over industrialization.
Just because we are a capitalist society gives us no right ravage the environment, just like the eighteenth century French monarchy had no right to oppress its people because it was a monarchy. Unlike the French though, polar bears cannot bear arms, (no pun intended,) and overthrow corporate America. Therefore, we must elect a president and congress that will make the environment a priority.
To say that the polar bears are not endangered and will somehow survive alongside the petroleum industry is no different than Marie Antoinette's infamous, though fictional, comment in reference to the food shortage among the impoverished French populace: "let them eat cake."
Economics 101: At the most basic level the only way to decrease the price of a commodity that has a finite size and increasing demand besides short-term gimmicks is to increase the supply. This simple fact seems to have escaped many liberals who want to have their Antoinette-esque cake and eat it too.
On the one hand they bemoan the rising costs of gas, and the profits of the oil companies. On the other hand whenever the oil companies try to increase their supply and thus lower gas prices they cry environmental foul.
I don't understand how you manage to link polar bears to oppressed French serfs. Do the polar bears in turn oppress the poor defenseless seals? Does that make the phytoplankton the Untouchables of this system, at a bottom of a long chain of inter-species oppression? Or is it different because what polar bears do to seals is "natural"?
Going out on a limb here, disciple of science says that "Just because we are a capitalist society gives us no right ravage the environment"
Why not? What do you mean by ravage our environment? If you're referring to global warming and depletion of fisheries, then yes those are shortsighted acts and humanity shooting itself in its collective foot.
If however, you're referring to some kind of mystical notion of "natural beauty", then I must respectfully disagree. You say that corporations "need to see that they are destroying this beautiful planet via global warming and over industrialization. "
As I said before, global warming I can get on board with - that's just humanity's stupidity. But industrialization has brought great wealth and prosperity to most who have experienced it. Is is "over" industrialization simply because now that we've reaped the benefits others want to as well?
In the end I guess it comes back to polar bears. Which do you care about more, natural beauty and animal life, or actual sentient, thinking human beings?
This country needs to see that it needs to find an alternative source of fuel that is not E85. Instead of destroying ANWR to appease our gluttony for oil, we should be leaving Iraq, removing subsidies, reining in the petroleum companies, and actually financing scientific research. Can one not see the detrimental qualities of high oil prices AND that oil is neither sustainable nor environmentally friendly?
The eighteenth century French social order was implemented to keep the rich, royalty, and church in power. Thus, my linking of polar bears to the oppressed French is accurate because we are killing them to appease the oil companies' greed and keep them in power.
Rishubhav, you say that humans killing polar bears via global warming is the same as a the polar bears consuming seals, while in the same comment you contradict yourself by holding humans to a higher standard than other species with the words "which do you care about more, natural beauty and animal life, or actual sentient, thinking human beings?" Humans need to be held to a higher standard because we can easily disrupt the natural balance of an area that we have no business destroying unless it is for food and the survival of the species.
I don't think that you understand the phrase over industrialization, which is the imposition of humans into an area such as the Amazon to reap the resources. I am all for industrialization, as long as it can coexist with the environment.
Also, "natural beauty" can be interpreted as the "mystical notion" which you spoke of, but that is not what I believe that it means. To me, it is the simply the Earth and its non-polluting/manmade parts. Though, I am not saying that there is no beauty in manmade artwork, structures, or literature, for those are immensely beautiful as well.
NOTE:
Polar bears are conscious organisms because they are sentient and have an awareness of their own existence. Though they cannot think as we can, that does not make them any less sentient. Even microorganisms have a sort of "unconscious sentience" as I call it, which means that they know what is around them except they are on a sort of "autopilot."
Also, Antoinette's fictional comment is used to illustrate her ignorance toward the world around her, not simply that there was a food shortage. Thus, I do not understand your words: "many liberals who want to have their Antoinette-esque cake and eat it too."
Rishubhav: I strongly disagree on a number of points. Let me rebut your argument.
1. The problem with your "increasing the supply" point is that in the long run, drilling for oil in the ANWR is a short-term gimmick. Every peer-reviewed study seems to suggest that oil supply has peaked. Everybody acknowledges that soon we will have to confront the truth: alternative energy sources are necessary. Pretending that this new arctic drilling will help is contributing to the problem. Sooner or later we will have to switch to wind, solar, geothermal, natural gas, or even nuclear (which, though, has problems of its own). Rather than deny the problem, let's start figuring out a solution before time runs out and our economy is completely devastated in the process.
2. I know that the way of the world is this: Corporations have a legal obligation to maximize returns for their shareholders, even if this requires artificially high gas prices.
The difference between the US and other countries is that while others have high gas prices as well, much of the price is in the form of a gas tax which the government uses to pay for health care, education, etc. In the US, the same money goes right into the pockets of the corporations.
I'm not directly faulting ExxonMobil for trying to increase profit. Corporations in a capitalist society can never be honestly expected to voluntarily put workers, the environment, or consumers before profit and dividends. This is the singular greatest flaw with our system.
However, it is the right, indeed it is the responsibility of our government to put in place protections that ensure that workers, consumers, and the earth are safe from these corporations. This means regulating toxic waste, water and air pollution, and employee Health and Safety among other things.
The capitalist system, properly checked, is a wonderful thing. Corporations and big business can create as much as they destroy. However, we need a government that can keep it in check. Much more than the polar bear is at stake.
3. The environmental question comes down to a fundamental choice about the nature of the world:
Does the earth exist solely for our needs and desires, to be used at our discretion or at any way? Or rather, are we stewards of a planet and natural world which is infinitely more complex and extensive than our own species?
In effect, acceptance of the first leads to some of Rishubhav's conclusions: that humanity is shooting itself in the foot with global warming and overfishing, that the ecology is a resource that might as well be taken advantage of.
I wholeheartedly reject this belief. Virtually every human attempt to overuse the environment has wreaked havoc on our world, threatening the ecology as well as our civilization. Invasive species, overfishing, logging, rainforest destruction, strip-mining, and untreated sewage all stand testament to the fact that we do not fully understand the natural world.
What we do not understand we will destroy. And destruction of the rainforest, for example, is more than a matter of animal rights, it is a humanitarian question.
If we harm this earth much more, subsequent generations will be forced to cope with a world without many of these resources; without sound farmland, without natural resources, without stable ecosystems, without countless species of plants and animals whose genes could hold the cures to cancer, AIDS, Parkinsons, and other diseases.
It is more than a "mystical notion of 'natural beauty'". It is in our best interests to adopt sustainable environmental policies. We've only got this one planet.
4. Yes, I do think that polar bears' eating of seals is an entirely different matter from arctic oil exploration. The nature of the bears' ecosystem necessitates the hunting for matters of survival. The polar bears to not get a legitimate choice as to whether or not to eat seal. It is a Hobson's choice: they eat seal or they don't eat. It is a simple matter of survival in a natural system refined by billions of years of evolution. Nature knows what it's doing.
Oil companies exploring for gas, however, is an entirely different matter. Here survival is not an issue. Rather, the issue is whether to cause harm to the environment (which no one denies) which would be precluded if other energy solutions such as wind and solar were adopted. Here the question is one of greed, not of survival itself.
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."
-Mahatma Gandhi
Bravo, Young Sentinel! I completely concur.
This is going to be a massive comment, so bear with me...
First off, Marie Antoinette's comment exposed her privileged and sheltered life, and her disconnect with the real world around her. The point I was trying to make is that many environmentalists exhibit this tendency - coming from prosperous and industrialized backgrounds they expect the rest of the world to eat the "cake" of environmentalism which only the rich can really afford.
We call the eighteenth century French social order unjust because we can identify with the people who are being opressed - the French workers, because after all most of us are not royalty. The oil companies' agenda is unjust to the polar bears yes, but we're not polar bears. Similarly, the fact that polar bears eat seals is not fair to the seals, but the polar bears aren't seals, so why should they care? I'm holding humanity to the standard that we hold every other species to - the protection of itself
By the way, the polar bears aren't faced with a Hobson's choice - they can and do choose to eat more seals than the bare minimum for survival because that's what they've been genetically selected to do. The more they eat, the more fit they look to a potential mate. Is this not "greed" to spread the genetic material of a polar bear?
Well, then tell me, what does "over" industrialization mean? You say a place "such as the Amazon." Do you mean a place full of biodiversity that can be used to benefit humanity? Then industrializing it would be "shooting ourselves in the foot" as I said before. However, in a relatively non-biodiverse area like the Alaskan tundra it's hard to see much benefit that can be derived for humanity.
The Earth and its non manmade parts fall under the "natural" part of your statement. What do you mean by beauty, and more importantly why should we care when lives are at stake?
YoungSentinel, I completely agree with you, drilling in ANWR is a relatively short term fix. In your post you say we need to figure out a solution "before time runs out and our economy is completely devastated in the process" This is what ANWR will give us - time.
I agree that there needs to be significant government control and guidance of corporations. Corporations should be treated as a tool for society as a whole - not good or evil, simply a powerful tool that must be used properly.
It's in your 3rd point that we come to the main divide between us. I do wholeheartedly accept your first statement, and reject the second. I would argue that we are stewards of our species, not the planet. We should accept that it's our responsibility to provide for the future of the species. This may seem like a small change, and indeed in many ways it's indistinguishable.
The difference is that it gives us flexibility. For example, we can take ANWR not as part of some larger struggle to "protect the planet", but rather as a solitary incident in which we have multiple options. We can then evaluate those options based on how we think they will affect us in the future. The end result is that instead of blindly ruling out using resources from the environment, we use them responsibly. Think of it as sustainable fishing except with all the planet's resources
Rishubhav: Sustainable is what I am all about.
We disagree on this: I think that you are a steward of anything you use. If you strip mine, you are responsible for the effects on the ecology that resulted from your strip mining.
We went into Iraq and blew it apart. Now it is up to us to oversee the reconstruction.
Corporations are not inherently good or evil, this is a point on which we can agree. However, it is wrong to assert that they are incapable of evil. View them as a force that must be tamed and directed, and if not will do much harm.
I did a major science project on oil spill cleanup, and in so doing came to appreciate the extreme consequences that even a minute quantity of oil can have on an environment. The ExxonValdez spill, which I researched for the project, would have cost tens of billions of dollars to completely clean up.
Let's find common ground:
-we must begin to allocate as much money and resources as possible to the development of alternative, sustainable energies.
-wind and solar are the two most promising
As for the polar bear-Marie Antoinette metaphor, I think we should leave it be. It has caused enough confusion.
"Polar bears aren't seals, so why should they care?" We have already established that the bears do not have our or any moral system, being nonsentient. As someone who has studied polar bears (I did a summer program at the Central Park Zoo) I know that your assertion is partly incorrect. The bears eat what they can find, but their situation is different from our own. As you said, "we are not polar bears". The excess fat they assume helps them swim for days on end in frigid waters and survive in subzero blizzards. A polar bear in a zoo is not a polar bear in the wild. Evidence shows that wild polar bears are finding food increasingly harder to come by.
You begin to get at the ultimate question: what system should we use to value animal lives in relation to our own?
There is, as in general ethics, no systematic answer to this question. However, we can weigh each case individually. In this situation, I see ANWR drilling as another excuse for inaction on the issue of alternative energies. It will take years to develop the infrastructure to make wind and solar energy viable parts of our economy. We should be starting now.
There might come a time when we have to agree to disagree. In the meantime, let's try to strike a compromise.
Rishubhav: A minor point
By stating that "I'm holding humanity to the standard that we hold every other species to" you are disregarding the fundamental scientific concepts that have been established earlier in the comment 'string', namely that human beings are of a higher level of consciousness than polar bears. How can we, as higher beings, limit ourselves to the survival instincts that govern the existence of lower beings? Given that we do possess the capacity for higher level of thought than that of polar bears, it is imperative that we hold ourselves to a higher level of behavior.
That our actions follow from logical thought processes would be a good start.
Note: the 'appearing earlier in the comment string'' applies only to the comments that were published on the main blog
Rishubhav: Do you also acknowledge that the human, having a higher level of consciousness than a polar bear, must be held to higher standards of responsibility and morality?
As more advanced species, it is our duty to rectify that which we have tampered with. Might does not make right.
Say what you want, but when you actually are the chairman of a major company, you will put profits in front of pollution. I've seen so many people who say that they would do differently, but they never actually would. Disposing of waste and purchasing new machines can cost extremely large sums of money. So the question is, what do we do about this problem?
Some say that the government should set restrictions. That is one possibility, but it has its faults. This system requires these businesses to devise methods of mantaining a profitable business under the regulations the government sets. This might kill the business all together, affecting the economy.
Here's my suggestion: the government should set regulations, but they should assist with the process of paying for ways to dispose of waste and limit pollution. Therefore, there would be as little pollution as possible and the companies wouldn't go out of business.
But where would they raise that kind of money? There could be a slight tax on the product to help pay for the costs of eco-friendly solutions. I know Americans hate taxes, but the enviornment hates nuclear waste even more. Anyway, the government could cut down on expensive commercials for the marines, thus saving enough money.
Each of the solutions to the problem has at least one major con, but I can assure you that whatever we do in the future, as long as we protect the enviornment, it would be better than killing the earth like we do now.
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