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//**************** Environmentalism - November 18th, 2019 *******************//
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- Alright; this is the last week of regular lectures in this class, so let's finish strong!
- Next week, class is cancelled for Professor Rosenberger's Thanksgiving travel plans, and when we get back we just have 1 more lecture for final exam review
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- Thus far, we've been focused on "normal ethics" in this course; the foundational stuff all engineers (and, honestly, all people) should be worried about
- Today, we're going to apply what we've learned to environmentalism, and on Wednesday we'll talk about "international engineering"
- Why should engineers care about the environment?
- The book argues it's for 2 major reasons:
- Stuff that engineers build can have a huge impact on the environment, so they need to be conscientious of that stuff so they don't screw up and kill the atmosphere or accidentally destroy a civilization of geese or something
- Engineers can build things to counteract environmental harm, and to actively help preserve the environment
- One of the major players in how the environmental movements got started was Rachel Carson, who in 1962 discovered how harmful certain pesticides (especially DDT) were to humans and animals they weren't intended for, and published an influential book on it called "Silent Spring" detailing these effects and cautioning against unintentional pollution
- So, what does the law have to say about my required degree of tree-hugging?
- Federal law especially covers pollution, and a big regulatory act here is the 1969 Natural Conservation act (etc.)
- One quick distinction we're making: most environmental ethics are ANTHROPOCENTRIC (meaning they're concerned with the environment's effects on people), rather than the more controversial ECO-CENTRIC ethics (which argues that the environment has inherent value and has "rights" in some sense)
- These two aren't necessarily in conflict, but they have different focuses
- Why should we "save the whales," for instance? Is it because some communities depend on whaling for their economy or because we want to preserve them for scientific research, or is it because the whales have a right as a species to exist?
- Some stuff the book mentions that we won't look at in *that* much detail...
- On page 159, the book gives a list of criterions about what our standard for sustainability should be - for instance, if we know there's pollution in the river, how polluted does it have to be before it's a problem we need to address?
- In section 7.8, the book also mentions 3 stances your corporation can take towards environmental regulation:
- The SUB-MINIMAL attitude thinks that the government has excessively regulated things, and tries to avoid regulations when possible for the good of the company
- In certain situations, for instance, paying a government fine might be more profitable than doing things the "right" way
- The MINIMAL (or "Compliance") attitude says that you need to follow the laws the government has set, and that's enough to be a good, sustainable company
- The PROGRESSIVE attitude thinks that they should do MORE than the standard the laws have set, and essentially self-regulate themselves to a stricter environmental standard
- Most of the textbook's chapter focuses on this, saying "you don't *have* to do this, but if you care about the environment, here's how you can do that"
- So far, so good - but take note of the assumptions we've made so far:
- The default U.S. government's aim with environmental law is to reduce pollution
- It's MORE costly to prevent pollution than it is to pollute, so there's a trade-off between profit and keeping the environment clean
- In the last 20 years, there's been a big shift in approach from cleaning up the environment to being SUSTAINABLE
- The idea here is that rather than cleaning the environment in a cost-effective way, we're instead trying the build projects and products that avoid using the Earth's limited resources faster than they're being replaced while still achieving our engineering goals
- If we build things that are sustainable, then we don't need to worry about clean-up - things will take care of themselves!
- "The idea is to generate no more waste than the local environment can handle, and to use up no more resources than the environment can realistically give us"
- "I suspect MANY environmentalist disagreements come from different intuitions over how much punishment the environment can take; people who don't care about sustainability seem to think the planet can take just about anything we throw at it and still remain generally okay"
- Some people think the world is relatively small and that stuff can be used up in a relatively short amount of time, while other people think of the world as being HUGE and that anything humans do is a drop in the bucket
- Also, note that sustainability nowadays isn't just about environmental sustainability, but also INCLUDES economic concerns and being "economically sustainable" and profitable as well
- "This clicked for me - as with too many things - when I was watching cooking shows. Not the recipe ones, but Gordon Ramsey 'Kitchen Nightmares' stuff, where British people would yell about how bad restaurants were and how they could be better"
- As it turns out, sustainable fishing is a HUGE issue in the restaurant industry, because not everywhere in the ocean has fish! Just like the American Southwest, there are huge regions of the ocean that don't have fish, and smaller areas where fish are plentiful
- Heck, the Vikings knew about this, but due to large-scale commercial fishing people have to actually worry about catching ALL THE FISH now
- Why this matters for restaurants is that there may be periods when the fishing industry is giving the salmon population "a break" to recuperate, and so you have to figure out what sustainable fish you'll serve in the meantime
- If we fish smartly and sustainably, then, we can keep fish from running out, and make sure our grandchildren can stay in business fishing indefinitely
- There's a big apparent tension here: do we need to be sustainable at the expense of the economy? Do we have to give up money to help the environment?
- Sustainability is trying to hack around this and be both profitable AND sustainable (pg. 162)
- The book sees 3 problems with sustainability we need to tackle:
- First off, it seems that the economy and environmentalism may actually be inherently in low-key conflict
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- Also - although it's kinda petty - sustainability is HARD! We don't know how to do everything yet, and it requires cultural shifts and changing how we do things!
- Finally, many people think sustainability will lead to democracy and equity and all that nice stuff, but is that true? Whose environments are we worried about? Will this lead to 1st-world countries taking advantage of developing nations?
- Why is sustainability justified, form an ethical viewpoint?
- Utilitarian-wise, you could argue we have a responsibility to maximize happiness for future generations and preserve stuff and not screw our kids
- Deontologically, we need to respect rights for life in polluted areas
- Virtue ethics wise, caring for and respecting nature seem to be a virtue, so...yeah?
- Lastly, a bit closer to home: Georgia Tech is SUPER concerned with sustainability (we're an engineering institution, after all)
- Almost all buildings on campus are LEED certified, the Civil Engineering college pours a ton of research money into this every day, and it's enticing! We're engineers, and we want to invent our way out of our problems!
- Why can't you be the person who does that stuff, and invents stuff to make money AND save the planet?
- Alright, see you Wednesday!