Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
First,
recognize that business is not the enemy.
Businesses want to make money for their investors and
stockholders. Why not reward them while simultane-
ously encouraging new environmental innovations by
shifting government subsidies from earth-degrading
activities to earth-sustaining activities and by shifting
taxes from income and wealth to pollution and re-
source waste? In this way, environmentalists and lead-
ers of corporations could become partners in a joint
quest for environmental and economic sustainability.
Second,
shift the emphasis from dealing with en-
vironmental problems after the fact to preventing or
minimizing them.
Third,
use well-designed and carefully monitored
marketplace solutions to prevent most environmental
problems instead of relying primarily on laws, regula-
tions, and litigation.
Fourth,
cooperate and innovate to find
win-win
so-
lutions to environmental problems instead of using
confrontational tactics to come up with less effective
I-
win-you-lose
solutions in which the earth always ends
up losing.
Fifth,
stop exaggerating. People on both sides of
thorny environmental issues should take a vow not to
exaggerate or distort their positions in attempts to play
win-lose or winner-take-all environmental games.
There are trade-offs in any environmental decision—as
presented throughout this topic—so they must work
together to find balanced win-win solutions that are
implemented in a flexible and adaptive manner.
In working to make the earth a better place to live,
we should be guided by historian Arnold Toynbee's ob-
servation, “If you make the world ever so little better,
you will have done splendidly, and your life will have
been worthwhile,” and by George Bernard Shaw's re-
minder that “indifference is the essence of inhumanity.”
In the end, it comes back to
each of us taking respon-
sibility.
We must decide whether we want to be part of
the problem or part of the solution to the environmen-
tal challenges we face.
fabric deteriorate, and its political structure become
destabilized as growing numbers of people seek to sus-
tain themselves from declining resource stocks. Thus,
national security is no longer about fighting forces and
weaponry alone. It relates increasingly to watersheds,
croplands, forests, genetic resources, climate, and other
factors that, taken together, are as crucial to a nation's
security as are military factors.
Proponents of Myers' view call for all countries to
make environmental security a major focus of diplo-
macy and government policy at all levels. This perspec-
tive would be implemented by a council of advisers
made up of highly qualified experts in environmental,
economic, and military security who integrate all three
security concerns in making major decisions. Propo-
nents note that failure to protect chemical and nuclear
plants and water supplies from terrorist acts can lead to
serious environmental harm.
Likewise, acting to prevent pollution and reduce
resource waste can improve economic and environ-
mental security. For example, reducing dependence on
imported oil by improving gas mileage saves con-
sumers money, reduces air pollution, helps slow global
warming, and improves military security by reducing
the need for troops from oil-addicted countries to help
protect Middle East oil supplies.
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OW
W
OULD
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OU
V
OTE
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Global Outlook: International
Environmental Organizations
International environmental organizations
gather and evaluate environmental data, help
develop environmental treaties, and provide
funds and loans for sustainable economic
development.
A variety of international environmental organizations
help shape and set environmental policy. Perhaps the
most influential is the United Nations, the umbrella
that shelters a large family of organizations such as
the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the World
Health Organization (WHO), the UN Development
Programme (UNDP), and the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO).
Other organizations that make or influence envi-
ronmental decisions include the World Bank, the
Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the World
Conservation Union (IUCN).
These and other organizations have played impor-
tant roles in
18-5 GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY
National and Global Security
Many analysts believe that environmental security is
as important as military and economic security.
Countries are legitimately concerned with
military se-
curity
and
economic security.
However, ecologists and
many economists point out that all economies are sup-
ported by the earth's natural capital (Figure 1-9, p. 13).
According to environmental expert Norman
Myers,
Expanding understanding of environmental issues
If a nation's environmental foundations are degraded
or depleted, its economy may well decline, its social
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Gathering and evaluating environmental data
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