[OKC] big business save the earth? not a chance

[Kelley C Smith]

HH,

Your comments touch on something I've been thinking about. I don't have 
a great deal of confidence in business. There are certainly many 
businesspeople who are somewhat environmentally-conscious. But they 
cannot count on their competitors being environmentally conscious, so I 
am skeptical that there is much reason for optimism. The idea of 
government as a countervailing power to force businesses to be good has 
some appeal. however, I'm skeptical about this too. Governments tend to 
be under-funded. They cannot hire the most experienced people, and 
regulatory agencies tend to serve as a training ground for young grads 
to gain experience and be hired away by a company regulated by the 
agency. Happens often. Then there are the efforts of lobbyists......

I am starting to wonder if tsomehing that would work is something on a 
small scale. You are saying (I think) decisions should be made at the 
individual level. I feel like that's TOO small-scale. an individual may 
lack information about how his/her decisions affects others. What about 
a neighborhood scale operation? What would OKC look like if food 
production, some production of necessary goods were carried out at the 
neighborhood level? Don't know. Just wondering.

Maybe there would be several business districts around town (rather than 
trying to funnel everything into downtown) -- Uptown (23rd St.), Capitol 
Hill, Park Estates..... don't know. Just thinking.

Kelley

Harlan Hentges wrote:
>
> Big business and big government suffer from the same inherent flaw – 
> ignorance -- that is lack of information needed for sound decision 
> making. Information for good decisions is possessed at the individual 
> level, not at the top of hierarchical, politicized, centers of 
> decision-making power such as corporate boards, elected or appointed 
> governmental positions or management of public, private, for profit or 
> not for profit entities. People who populate these centers of power 
> are no better qualified by experience or character to make decisions 
> than the individuals who have to bear the consequences of those 
> decisions. Because they have less information and because they do not 
> have to bear the consequences, they are even less qualified to make 
> decisions. As many decisions as possible should be kept out of the 
> hands of big gov and big biz and placed as near as possible to the 
> individual.
>
> It should be a matter of good public policy and sound corporate 
> management that public officials and corporate managers work to reduce 
> the size of governmental and corporate entities and to decentralize 
> power whenever possible.
>
> _ _
>
> *From:* okc-bounces at sustainableokc.org 
> [mailto:okc-bounces at sustainableokc.org] *On Behalf Of *Shauna Struby
> *Sent:* Sunday, December 06, 2009 9:19 AM
> *To:* okc at sustainableokc.org; ok-sus at lists.oksustainability.org
> *Subject:* [OKC] Will big business save the earth?
>
> 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&hp 
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/opinion/06diamond.html?_r=1&hp>
>
> Shauna, OKC
>
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>
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