978-0205017669 Chapter 5 Lecture Note Part 1

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CHAPTER FIVE

Ethics and the Environment

Overview

Introduction

Modern industry has provided us with a material prosperity unequaled in our history. It has

also created unparalleled environmental threats to ourselves and to future generations.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States in 2008

pumped more than 130 million tons of “common air pollutants” (such as smoke, lead and

carbon monoxide) into the air, in addition to the 7.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions

with which we seem to be heating up our atmosphere. We produced 3.9 billion tons of toxic

wastes, of which 247 million pounds was released as surface water discharge. Our total

energy consumption for the year was 100 quadrillion BTUs (British Thermal Units) which is

equivalent to about 17.24 billion barrels of oil or 721 billion gallons of gasoline. Each U.S.

citizen annually accounts for the consumption of about 1,300 pounds of metal and 18,500

pounds of other minerals, and each produces over 4.5 pounds of garbage every day.

Environmental issues, then, raise large and complicated ethical and technological questions

for our business society. What is the extent of the environmental damage produced by the

processes through which we manufacture our products, grow our food, and power our

cities?

This chapter explores these environmental issues. It begins with an overview of various

technical aspects of environmental resource use. This is followed by a discussion of the

ethical basis of environment protection. The final sections discuss two controversial issues:

our obligations to future generations and the prospects for continued economic growth.

5.1 The Dimensions of Pollution and Resource Depletion

Environmental damage inevitably threatens the welfare of human beings as well as plants

and animals. Threats to the environment come from two sources, pollution and resource

depletion. Pollution refers to the undesirable and unintended contamination of the

environment by the manufacture or use of commodities. Resource depletion refers to the

consumption of finite or scarce resources. In a certain sense, pollution is really a type of

resource depletion because contamination of air, water, or land diminishes their beneficial

qualities.

Air pollution is not new—it has been with us since the Industrial Revolution introduced

the world to the belching factory smokestack. However, the costs of air pollution increased

exponentially as industrialization expanded. Today, air pollutants affect vegetation,

decreasing agricultural yields and inflicting losses on the timber industry; they deteriorate

exposed construction materials through corrosion, discoloration, and rot; they are

hazardous to health and life, raising medical costs and lessening the enjoyment of living;

and they threaten catastrophic global damage in the form of global warming and destruction

of the stratospheric ozone layer.

Global warming Greenhouse gases itself poses a difficult and frightening challenge. Global

warming greenhouse gases such as: carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and

chlorofluorocarbons, are gases that absorb and hold heat from the sun, preventing it from

escaping back into space, much like a greenhouse absorbs and holds the sun’s heat. Of

these gases, methane is able to capture more heat than an equal amount of any of the

others, but there is much more carbon dioxide so it is the gas that actually makes the

greatest contribution to heating the atmosphere. These effects will have high human and

economic costs. However, to halt the increase of greenhouse gasses, we would have to

reduce emissions by 60% to 70%. Some environmentalists have said that making thee

kinds of emissions reductions will require a wholesale change in our lifestyles and values.

This is such a large reduction, that few governments are ready to attempt the political

negotiations required to mandate such a reduction, and so most nations are still increasing

their carbon dioxide emissions by substantial amounts.

The main sources of greenhouse gas emissions are:

1. Power generation – 21.3%

2. Industrial processes – 16.8%

3. Transportation – 14%

4. Farming – 12.5%

5. Drilling for oil and processing it – 11.3%

These are all activities in which business is heavily involved. If greenhouse gases are going

to be reduced, business is going to have to play a major role. Some companies have

already worked at reducing their “carbon footprint” but other companies have done little,

particularly energy companies who have opposed attempts to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions.

Ozone depletion The release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the stratosphere above us

gradually breaks down ozone gas in the stratosphere. This layer of ozone in the

stratosphere screens life on Earth from the harmful ultraviolet radiation the Sun emits.

Ozone depletion may lead to several hundred thousand new cases of skin cancer each year

and destroy many valuable food crops. Also, ocean plankton, on which the entire ocean’s

food chain depends, may be severely damaged. Even though CFC production has been

nearly halted, we can expect the gasses already released to continue damaging the ozone

for the next 75 – 130 years. Scientists have warned that even if the use of CFC gases were

completely halted, CFC levels in the atmosphere would still continue their dangerous upward

climb because those gases already released will continue to rise upward for many years and

persist for perhaps a century.

Acid Rain Acid rain occurs when coal containing high levels of sulfur is burned and releases

large quantities of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. Coal-burning

electric power plants account for 70% of annual sulfur oxide emissions and 30% of nitrogen

oxides. When these gases are carried into the air, they combine with water vapor in clouds

to form nitric acid and sulfuric acid. These acids are then carried down in rain, which often

falls hundreds of miles away from the original sources of the oxides. This acidic rainfall is

carried into lakes and rivers, where it raises the acidity of the water. Many fish populations

and other aquatic organisms (algae, zooplankton, and amphibians) are unable to survive.

Acid rain directly damages or destroys tree, plants, lichens and mosses and can leach toxic

metals – cadmium, nickel, lead, manganese, and mercury – from soil and carry these into

water ways, contaminating drinking water or fish. Acid rain can also corrode and damage

buildings, statues, and other objects.

Airborne Toxics are less catastrophic but highly worrisome air pollution threats; 2.4 billion

pounds of airborne toxic substances released annually into the nation’s atmosphere,

including phosgene, a nerve gas used in warfare, and methyl isocyanate, which killed 2,000

Indians in Bhopal. The chemical brew released into the air annually includes 235 million

pounds of carcinogens and 527 million pounds of neurotoxins. The EPA estimates that 20 of

the more than 329 toxics released into the air alone cause more than 2,000 cases of cancer

each year.

Common Air Pollutants The most prevalent forms of air pollution, however, are the six

kinds of gases and particulates spewed out mostly autos and industrial process that the EPA

calls “common air pollutants” affecting the quality of the air that we breathe, injuring

human health, harming the environment, and damaging property. The six “common air

pollutant” are carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, airborne lead, ozone, and

particulates. More recent long range studies have indicated that the deterioration of lung

function in human beings caused by chronic exposure to air pollutants is long lasting and

often irreversible.

Water pollution is likewise a serious problem. About 40% of the world’s surface water is

too polluted to fish or swim in. Water pollutants enter surface water or underground water

basins either from a single point source, such as a pipe or a well carrying sewage or

industrial wastes, or they enter from a diffused or nonpoint source covering a large area,

such as crop pesticides or animal wastes carried in rainwater or runoff. Salt brines from

mines and oil wells, as well as mixtures of sodium chloride and calcium chloride used to

keep winter roads clear of snow; all eventually drain into water sources, where they raise

the saline content. The high saline levels in ponds, lakes, and rivers kill whatever fish,

vegetation, or other organisms inhabit them.

Water drainage from coal mining operations contains sulfuric acid as well as iron and sulfate

particles. The acidic water from these sources is sometimes flushed into streams and

rivers. The high acid levels produced in waterways by these practices are lethal to most

organisms living within the aquatic environment.

Organic wastes affect the water supply. It consists of untreated human wastes and sewage,

as well as wastes derived from industrial processing of various food products, wastes from

the pulp and paper industry, and wasted from animal feedlots. Various types of bacteria

consume organic wastes that find their way into water resources and in the process they

deplete the water of its oxygen. The oxygen depleted then becomes incapable of

supporting fish life and other organisms. The following wastes have various polluting

effects:

1. Phosphorus found in detergents fertilizers and untreated human and animal waste –

Affects lakes with expansions of algae that choke waterways and drive out other life.

2. Inorganic pollutants such as mercury created by burning coal which is naturally

contaminated with mercury, finding their way into fresh water supplies and the

oceans, ultimately finds its way up the food chains to humans.

3. Cadmium from zinc refineries, agricultural use of certain fertilizers, and disposed

electrical batteries makes its way into water sources affecting fish and shellfish.

4. Asbestos in fresh water caused by mining companies depositing contaminated wastes

into fresh water sources. If swallowed can cause gastrointestinal tract cancer.

5. Oil spills are a form of water pollution whose occurrence became more frequent as

our dependence on oil increases. This contamination is lethal to sea life, including

fish, seals, plants, and aquatic birds. It requires extensive cleanup operations and

imposes costly losses on nearby tourists and fishing industries.-

6. In the past, oceans have been used as disposal site for intermediate and low-level

radioactive wastes. Although banned by the U.S. Government in 1979,

oceanographers have examined seawater and found traces of plutonium, cesium and

other radioactive materials, apparently leaked from sealed drums in which

radioactive wastes are disposed.

More than 50 percent of the U.S. population depends on underground sources for drinking

water, yet the water supplies are becoming more polluted. Today approximately 884 million

people in the world lack access to safe drinking water and about a third of them live in Sub-

Saharan Africa and most of the rest live in rural areas of poor developing countries.

Land Pollution

The pollution of the land by toxic substances also causes increased mortality and illness.

Hazards or toxic substances are those that can cause an increase in mortality rates or

irreversible or incapacitating illness, or those that have other seriously adverse health or

environmental effects. About 70,000 different chemical compounds are currently being used

in the U.S., and well over a thousand are probably toxic with the number increasing each

year. How many of these chemicals affect humans, no one really knows. The sheer volume

of solid waste is staggering: each U.S. resident produces about 4.5 pounds of garbage per

day. Though this quantity is massive, it is not even close to the quantity of industrial waste.

Each nuclear reactor produces 265 pounds of plutonium waste a year, a substance so toxic

that only twenty pounds would be sufficient to cause lung cancer in everyone on Earth. So

far, no one really knows how to dispose of this and similar wastes safely and securely.

Americans produce more residential garbage than do the citizens of any other country in the

world. U.S. cities produce 250 million tons of municipal world waste each year. Each

person contributing about 4.5 pounds a day.

The United States generates about 20 percent of it electricity from 65 nuclear plants

currently operating. Of these, 59 have been approved to continue operating for an

additional 20 years. Light-water nuclear reactors contain radioactive materials including

four powerful carcinogens. Extremely high levels of radiation from these materials can kill a

person. Low doses can cause thyroid, lung, or bone cancer as well as genetic damage that

will be transmitted to future generations. Although no new nuclear power plants have been

constructed in the United States for several years, the power plants are still producing

nuclear wastes. How theses wastes will be disposed of is still uncertain.

Depletion of Species and Habitats

As if pollution was not serious enough, we also must consider the depletion of species,

habitats, and natural resources. Since 1600, at least 96 known species of mammals and 88

major identifiable species of birds are known to have become extinct. Of the 47,978 species

and subspecies known to exist in 2010 in the last 500 years, 36% were threatened with

extinction and 840 are now extinct. Nowhere has the depletion of living organisms been as

significant as in the oceans. Fish stocks around the world have collapsed because of over-

fishing, resulting in a serious decline in the fish protein available to local populations.

Depletion of Fossil Fuels

Until the 1980s, our consumption of fossil fuels was rising at exponential rates, but this

cannot continue much longer because we are coming close to the depletion point of fossil

fuels. Estimated world resources of coal would be depleted in about 100 years, estimated

world reserves of oil would be exhausted in about 40 years, and estimated reserves of

natural gas would last only about 25 years. Experts point out that our consumption of a

resource cannot continue rising at exponential rates. As reserves of any resource shrink,

they become increasingly difficult, and therefore more costly to extract, which in turn slows

down their depletion rates. Using the Hubbert model (after the geologist M. Kin Hubbert)

rather than the exponential model, the reserves of coal will probably peak in about 150

years and then continue, but at a declining rate coupled with rising prices, of another 150

years.

Depletion of Minerals

Minerals are also being depleted, so we can expect them gradually to become more scarce

and expensive. This scarcity will have a serious impact on world economy. Fortunately, as

with fossil fuels, the rate at which minerals are depleted does not continue to grow

exponentially, but peaks and then declines as metals become rarer, more difficult, and more

expensive to extract. Although many are abundant, none can be exploited indefinitely.

Eventually each will peter out and the costs of extraction will rise significantly. More

plentiful substitute material may be found for man of thee resources, but it is likely that

substitutes cannot be found for all of them. There are physical limitations to our natural

resources, although many are abundant, none can be exploited indefinitely.

5.2 The Ethics of Pollution Control

Businesses have been ignoring their impact on the natural environment for centuries,

largely because the economic costs and harmful effects of this impact have been unclear.

Businesses have treated air and water as free goods that no one owns. Since the carrying

capacity of both is so large, each individual firm sees its own contribution to pollution as

negligible. Combined, however, the effects are enormous. The harm comes not only from

the direct activity of businesses. Pollution also occurs as a result of consumer use of

manufactured items. Because every human being pollutes, pollution problems have

increased as our population has multiplied. The world’s population grew from 1 billion in

1850 to 2 billion in 1930 to 6.3 billion in 2003 and is projected to grow to 9 billion in 2050.

The problems of pollution have a variety of origins, and will require a similarly varied set of

solutions. The rest of this chapter concentrates on a single range of problems, the ethical

issues raised by pollution from commercial and industrial enterprises.

Because our environment is so complex and its parts are so interwoven, many theorists

believe that our duty to protect the environment extends beyond the welfare of humans

(anthropocentric) to other nonhuman parts of the system. This idea, called ecological

ethics or deep ecology, maintains that the environment deserves to be preserved for its

own sake, regardless of whether or not this directly benefits humanity. Because the various

parts of an ecological system are interrelated, the activities of one of its parts will affect all

the other parts. Because the various parts are interdependent, the survival of each part

depends on the survival of the other parts. Business firms (and all other social institutions)

are parts of a larger ecological system, “spaceship earth.”

Thus we have a moral duty to respect and refrain from harming these nonhumans

regardless of whether they make a contribution to our human welfare. Several supporters

of this approach have formulated their views in a platform consisting of the following

statements:

1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on earth have value in

themselves. These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world

for human purposes.

2. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and

are also values in themselves.

3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital

needs.

4. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease

of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.

5. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation

is rapidly worsening.

6. Policies must therefore be changed. The changes in policies affect basic economic,

technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply

different from the present.

7. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality, rather than

adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living.

8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly

to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes.

An ecological ethic, therefore, claims that the welfare of at least some nonhumans is

intrinsically valuable and deserves to be protected for their own sake. Utilitarian and rights

arguments both support such a view. Under either system, for instance, it would be wrong

to raise animals for food in painful conditions.

Though some of the views of deep ecology are unusual and controversial, two traditional

views of ethics can also help us to develop an environmental ethic: utilitarianism and

concern for human rights.

Environmental Rights and Absolute Bans

William T. Blackstone has argued that the possession of a livable environment is something

to which every human being has a right. To some extent, U.S. federal law recognizes this

concept. The main difficulty with Blackstone’s view, however, is that it fails to provide any

nuanced guidance on several pressing environmental choices. This lack of nuance in the

absolute rights approach is especially problematic when the costs of removing certain

amounts of pollution are high in comparison to the benefits that will be attained.

Peter Singer arguing from a utilitarian perspective that pain is an evil whether it is inflicted

on humans or on members of other animal species, and the pain experienced by an animal

is as great an evil as a comparable pain experienced by a human being. Some ecological

ethicians have claimed that it is arbitrary and hedonistic to confine our duties to creatures

that can feel pain. Instead they urge, we should acknowledge that all living things,

including plants, have interest in remaining alive.

At what point is the environment “safe” enough? Governments have struggled with this

question as they have attempted to implement the many laws that seem to require

absolutely no pollution. The U.S. government has often decided that when exposure to

pollution during one year poses a risk of death of 1 in 1 million or less, it is safe enough;

and when, during a year, exposure poses a risk of death of 3 in 10,000 or more, it is unsafe

and must be cleaned up. Risks that lie in-between are handled on a case-by-case basis.

Many people claim that if 1 person out of a million dies every year from exposure to

pollution, then the pollution is still too high: that one person also had a right to a healthy

environment and that right was violated. But is this claim justified? It seems unrealistic to

demand the complete elimination of absolutely all risks to life and health because fulfilling

that demand would impose unacceptable costs and burdens on all of us.