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September 03, 2007
One of the greatest victims of humanity’s rush to
progress has been our environment. From local watersheds to global
warming our impact on this earth has not always been a good one. However, with expensive costs to clean
pollution or update to more earth-friendly machinery, and little or no direct
money to be made from conservation efforts, there is little wonder that
industrialization in general has taken a heavy toll on our planet and until
recently there have been very few incentives for businesses to clean up their
act and conserve.
Today people all over the world are coming to
understand humanity’s impact on our world, and business analysts are no
exception. Environmental damage does not
harm just the cute panda bears and Amazon rain forests, the challenges we look
to face in the future hurt humanity in general. As sea level rises due to melting ice caps, companies and factories
located in the low laying north-east will be forced to relocate, if they
can. Companies that utilize rivers to
transport goods will have to deal with drying up as global warming continues,
and of course the ever present threat of increased hurricanes benefits
nobody. As a result, there is hope. Companies do have a self-preserving interest in
improving their policies to manage the environment.
After reading Jared Diamond’s book
“Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” I felt a very good point had been made. We have done a lot of harm, but through pressure and awareness, we are starting to at least try to turn things around. Our cars run more cleanly, paper products
often sport that “recycled” label, and this is largely thanks to that
self-interested business policy of doing what it takes to make the most
profit. Environmentally friendly
consumers push for more regulated products using their purchasing power, and
some businesses are looking into the long term future and understand that in
order to continue making money they will need to sustain their resources.
However, when reading the August 20th
issue of ICIS Chemical Business magazine Weather
Changes to Impact Chemical Production I was reminded of the fact that a
business’s commitment to the environment was a balancing act. Many companies understand that their business
will be hurt by oncoming weather changes, but according to this article, as we
have already damaged the environment so much, companies must look to adaptation
in the new environment. “’Even if we
stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today, we’d still see over the next 100
years an increase in the temperatures of the atmosphere and oceans,’ warns
Bernd Eggen, ‘That’s why it’s important to look at migration issues –reducing
greenhouse gasses- and adaptation issues – preparing for extreme weather events
and rises in sea level.’” If one day it
costs a company less to build higher levees than to cut down on emissions to
lessen global warming and thereby decrease storms, the company will opt for the
levies. Once a company had prepared for
the worst of climate change, they may lose their incentive to continue with
prevention, regardless of the people they displace or the cancers they are
indirectly responsible for. Where would
the profit be in that after all?
We as consumers, advocates, humans, however, need
to make sure we never get lax on our pressure on business and government to reduce
emissions and sustain our resources, because they will take short cuts if they
can. Because business is focused on
profit, and only environment indirectly, if it becomes clear that money can be
better made in other ways, they will change their policies unless we take a
stand. We only have one earth.
September 3, 2007 in Science | Permalink
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Comments
Great piece, I recently returned from a trip to London and was completley taken back by how environmentally aware the city and infact the whole country is. From there cars, to their homes, etc. Furthermore, a couple of years back I visited Yemen and was also surprised that in remote villiages solar and wind power was being utilized. Hence from the first world cities to third world villiages people are catching on that polluting our environment can not go on. However, it seems to me that Americans (being mostly responsible for the problem) fail in many ways to stop and prevent environmental problems.
Posted by: Hanna | Sep 5, 2007 9:55:25 AM
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