UNIVERSITI UTARA MALAYSIALAW, ETHICS AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY MUL 5063

The Ethics Of Pollution Control : -Ecological Ethics -The Costs And Who Should PayRare Earth Plant Bukit Merah Perspective

Lecturer : Md Rejab Bin Md Desa

Ahmad Halili Bin Ahmad Hassan 808684Mahanun binti Hamzah 808688MBA ATC Ipoh 7&8 hb Mei 2011

INTRODUCTION

1. The Ethics Of Pollution Control 2. Ecological Ethics3. The Costs And Who Should PayRare Earth Plant Bukit Merah Perspective

1. THE ETHICS OF POLLUTION CONTROL

Ethics and environment Modern industry has benefited human society in

many ways but has also create strains on and threats mainly the POLLUTION on the environment.

The acceleration of world industrialization-global economy grew more from 1985 to 1995 and population explosion since 1950 had spiraled human demands for resources and beginning to outgrow the capacity of earth’s natural systems, resulting in :

Collapsing fisheries Shrinking forest Soil erosion Drying lakes Disappearing species Global warming

Human societies are facing decreasing resources in the middle of accumulations of waste and declining environment quality.

The problems are so varied and vast and the means of solution are far beyond the resources of scientific and technological know how which we have relied and there is no time to avoid the coming catastrophe.

Normatively if disaster is impending for civilization, human, animals and earth itself:ecosystem, shouldn’t we be doing everything in our power to refrain it for future generation sake and for earth itself?

The dimensions of pollution: Involves undesirable environment contamination by manufacture or use of commodities.

Contamination of air, water and land diminishes their beneficial qualities.

Pollution is also a type of resource depletion.

Air pollution A result of industrial production and

certain industrial products such as industrial smoke stacks, utilities and automobiles that pollute air.

Global warming – “Green house effect” where atmosphere becomes like blanket keeping more heat in. Rising of carbon dioxide and other green house gas.

Ozone depletion – release of chlorofluorocarbons into the air destroy ozone and deteriorate ozone layer.

Airborne toxins – associated with increase cancer rate.

Acid rain – nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide emissions.Air quality – other pollutants such as assorted gas.

Water Pollution Notable pollutants & their effects –

organic waste & phosphorus compound.

Inorganics pollutants – heavy metals e.g. chromium.

Heat – due to use of water as a coolant

Ocean & underground water pollution.

Land PollutionToxic substances – acidic chemicals, pesticides herbicides, inorganic metals, flammable solvent and radioactive waste. Solid waste – Residential garbage and Industrial garbage.Nuclear waste – high level emit gamma rays, transuranic and low level contamination from nuclear plant.

2. ECOLOGICAL ETHICS What is ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the interactions between organisms and the environment.It is the science that seek to describe and explain the relationship between living organism and their surroundings.Ecology is study of interactions between non-living components in the environment and living organisms.

Classification of ecologyEcology is abroad discipline comprising of many subjects. The classifications are:

EcophysiologyBehavioral ecologyPopulation ecologyCommunity ecologyEcosystem ecologySystem ecology

System ecologyLandscape ecologyEvolutionary ecologyPolitical ecology

Levels of ecology are: Landscape Ecosystem Community

Population Individual

EcosystemA system of interrelated mutually dependent set of organisms and environment.

Status of ecologyPast status of ecology calm and quite, no disturbance from human.

Present statusPopulation are increasingNegative effectEcological crisis

Ecological crisisThe main causes of ecological crisis are:

Over populationEnvironment pollutionDeforestation

Ecological ethics - the discussionsBusiness have been ignoring their

impact on the environment because the economic costs and harmful effects are unclear.

Treating the air, water as free goods not own by any one.

Its sees its contribution to pollution as negligible.

Pollution occurs from activity of businesses directly and indirectly. Ecological ethics holds that we have a duty to protect the environment which extends beyond

the welfare of humans to other nonhuman parts of the system.

The idea maintains that environment deserved to be preserved for its own sake, regardless whether it benefits human being.

Ecological ethics claims that welfare of at least some nonhumans is intrinsically value and deserve to be respected and protected.

Two traditional views such as utilitarianism and concern for human rights can help us to develop an environmental ethics.

Utilitarianism views claims that moral worth of an action by any human being is determine by its utility in providing happiness or pleasure.

The fact that we are only part of large ecological system, has led many writers insist that we should recognize our moral duty to protect the welfare of human and non human parts of the system.

Several supporters of this approach have formulated their views/statements: The well being and flourishing of human

and nonhuman life have value in themselves.

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

Humans has no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.

Flourishing of human life and culture is compatible with a substantial decrease of human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such decrease.

Present human interference with nonhuman world is excessive and situation is rapidly worsening.

Policies must be changed which will affect basic economic, technological and ideological structure.

The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life rather than to increase high leaving standard.

Those who wants to make changes have obligations directly/indirectly to participate in the attempt to implement necessary changes.

Varieties of ecological ethicsThe most popular version claims that animals have intrinsic value and deserve our respect and protection.The first utilitarians Jeremy Bentham says that pain is evil whether it inflicted human or animals.

According to Peter Singer most recent utilitarian the pain of animal must be considered equal comparable to human pain to do other wise is speciesism comparable to racism & sexism.So we have the direct duty to animals to avoid causing pain to them.Certain nonutilitarians conclude that life of every animal itself has value apart from the interest of human being.

Human has duty to respect the right of animal to be treated with respect.

More extreme arguments extend rights and an interest in living & flourishing beyond animals to plants.

Natural things such as wild rivers, mountains have right to have their integrity, stability and beauty preserved.

Rights extend beyond individual living things to whole systems.

Utilitarianism approach on environmental problems.Sees environmental problems as market defects.If an industry pollutes it, the market prices of its commodities will no longer reflect the true cost of producing the commodities. The result is misallocation of resources, a rise in waste and inefficient distribution of commodities.

Consequently, society as a whole is harmed when overall economic welfare declines.

Therefore utilitarian argue that individuals should avoid pollution to avoid harming society’s welfare.

3. THE COST AND WHO SHOULD PAY? The cost should be classify as Private

Cost and Social Cost. Private Cost

Economists often distinguish between:What it cost private manufacturer to make a product andWhat the manufacturer of that product costsociety as a whole.

For example, an electric firm consumes certain amount of fuel, labor and equipment to produce one kilowatt of electricity.The cost of these resources is its private cost.Therefore, private cost is the price it must pay from its own pocket to manufacture the product.Private cost are the actual cost firms incur too produce a commodity.

According to utilitarians the remedy for external costs is to internalize the that is to ensure producer pays all the real cost of production and use this costs to determine price of commodity.

Internalizing external costs is consistent with the retributive of justice compensatory justice – those responsible for pollution bear the burden to rectify and compensate those harmed.

Duties of the firmThe polluting agent has the duty to pay all those being harmed an amount equal to the cost the pollution imposes on them, voluntarily or by law.

But the problem is when several polluters involved it is not clear who is damaging whom.

Polluter should stop pollution by installing pollution control devices. This way external costs of pollution are translated into internal costs where firms itself pay the installation of pollution control device.

ConclusionsThe costs of pollution control should be borne by those who cause them and benefiting from pollutions activities.

Those who had to bear the external cost of pollution should benefit from pollution control.

Internalizing cost meets the requirement The costs of pollution control are both borne by stakeholders and customers who benefit from the polluting activities.The benefit of pollution control flow to those that had to put up with the firm’s pollution.

Social CostRefer to the above example when firm produce the kilowatt of electricity it may also involve external cost that it does not pay. The external cost include the cost that surrounding neighbors have to pay for cleanup when the firm generate smoke and cost of any medical care that arise.

Therefore, Social Cost is the sum total of cost of the private internal cost plus the neighbors external cost.Social cost include the cost that firm does not pay.

When firms pollutes environment in anyway the firm’s private cost are always less than total social cost involved.

Pollution always imposes external costs, costs which the one who produces pollution does not have to pay.

The divergence of private and social cost means that the price no longer accurately reflects all cost of commodity.

This means resources not allocated efficiently and society’s welfare declines.

Since goods are no longer efficiently distributed to consumers , pollution violate the utilitarian principles that underlie market system.

THANK YOU…