[OKC] Will big business save the earth?

[Shauna Struby]

Excellent opinion piece entitled "Will Big Business Save the Earth?"in
today's NY Times from Jared Diamond, professor of geography at the
University of California at Los Angeles, and author of "Guns, Germs and
Steel," and "Collapse" 

 

December 6, 2009.

Op-Ed Contributor

Will Big Business Save the Earth? 

By JARED DIAMOND

Los Angeles

THERE is a widespread view, particularly among environmentalists and
liberals, that big businesses are environmentally destructive, greedy, evil
and driven by short-term profits. I know - because I used to share that
view. 

But today I have more nuanced feelings. Over the years I've joined the
boards of two environmental groups, the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation
International, serving alongside many business executives.

As part of my board work, I have been asked to assess the environments in
oil fields, and have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all
levels. I've also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and
financial services companies. I've discovered that while some businesses are
indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world's
strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability.

The embrace of environmental concerns by chief executives has accelerated
recently for several reasons. Lower consumption of environmental resources
saves money in the short run. Maintaining sustainable resource levels and
not polluting saves money in the long run. And a clean image - one attained
by, say, avoiding oil spills and other environmental disasters - reduces
criticism from employees, consumers and government. 

Other highlights:

.         In view of all those advantages that businesses gain from
environmentally sustainable policies, why do such policies face resistance
from some businesses and many politicians? The objections often take the
form of one-liners.

o    We have to balance the environment against the economy. The assumption
underlying this statement is that measures promoting environmental
sustainability inevitably yield a net economic cost rather than a profit.
This line of thinking turns the truth upside down. Economic reasons furnish
the strongest motives for sustainability, because in the long run (and often
in the short run as well) it is much more expensive and difficult to try to
fix problems, environmental or otherwise, than to avoid them at the outset.

o    Technology will solve our problems. Yes, technology can contribute to
solving problems. But major technological advances require years to develop
and put in place, and regularly turn out to have unanticipated side effects
- consider the destruction of the atmosphere's ozone layer by the nontoxic,
nonflammable chlorofluorocarbons initially hailed for replacing poisonous
refrigerant gases.

o    World population growth is leveling off and won't be the problem that
we used to fear. It's true that the rate of world population growth has been
decreasing. However, the real problem isn't people themselves, but the
resources that people consume and the waste that they produce. Per-person
average consumption rates and waste production rates, now 32 times higher in
rich countries than in poor ones, are rising steeply around the world, as
developing countries emulate industrialized nations' lifestyles. 

o    It's futile to preach to us Americans about lowering our standard of
living: we will never sacrifice just so other people can raise their
standard of living. This conflates consumption rates with standards of
living: they are only loosely correlated, because so much of our consumption
is wasteful and doesn't contribute to our quality of life. Once basic needs
are met, increasing consumption often doesn't increase happiness.

Full opinion piece here :::
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06diamond.html?_r=1
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06diamond.html?_r=1&hp> &hp 

 

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