SOC 450 Strayer University Cost of Economic Growth Discussion The Cost of Economic Growth Part 1 (Respond and Explain in Great Detail): In Chapter 7: Th

SOC 450 Strayer University Cost of Economic Growth Discussion The Cost of Economic Growth

Part 1 (Respond and Explain in Great Detail):

In Chapter 7: The Environment – Part II, Hite and Seitz (2016) discuss the existing tension between development and the environment. Development brings economic growth as well as social and environmental changes. To a developing country, economic growth may be of a higher priority than the consequences to the long-term health of its citizens or its environment. On the other hand, poverty can also harm the environment such as how searching for land to farm contributes to deforestation.

Do wealthy nations using the labor of developing nations have responsibilities to the people and environment of that country? Why or why not? Be sure to use examples of existing companies to support your response.

Part 2 (Respond to a peer’s post):

Review the posts of your classmates and respond to at least one other post, offering a substantive comment on that classmate’s position on the issue(s).

Peer’s post:

“Yes, the wealthy nations have a responsibility to the people and environment of the country they are utilizing their labor and environment for production. IF the rich continue taking and using from the poor countries then what will that country have left for their own people. You would not want someone to come into your home and use up all your food, utilities, and trash the house then leave a mess, would you? so what makes it any better for any country to do that to a country that has less than. There are United States companies that do this to other countries one of which is China. The regulations for dumping waste and chemical waste in China are not as strict as they are here and the labor is cheaper, so the big rich companies take their production over there in order to cut costs and to get away with cheaper disposal of chemicals and no fines if caught. This kind of damage is killing the air, land, and clean water for the people of China. So if we are going to use the country to produce our products then we owe it to the country to make sure we are following the same guidelines there that we have here. Don’t leave a mess for them to clean up or to die from just because we can.

Look at Nike and the fact that they abused the labor and dumping regulations in several poorer countries in order to make cheaper products and upsell them on the market. The waste from the factories was just dumped by way underpaid and untrained employees. I don’t even think I own a pair of Nikes now.” – Peer The Environment: Part II
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The Environment: Part II
more
cause
males and one out of five females will die from it. In the United States, cancer kills
females in the United States alive at present will contract cancer and one out of four
children than any other disease, although accidents are still the number one
e of death of children. It is commonly believed by the general public that expo-
sure of workers to cancer-causing substances – carcinogens – in the workplace, and
the exposure of the general population to pollution in the air and water and to car-
cinogens in some of the food they eat, are the main causes of this dreaded disease.
There is no question that many workers – such as the millions of people who worked
with asbestos – have been exposed to high levels of dangerous substances. But sci-
entists do not now believe that contamination at the workplace is the main cause of
cancer; nor do they believe that water pollution or food additives are causing most
of the cancer cases. While these remain dfficult to fully understand, leading cancer
s have agreed that smoking greatly increases the risk of contracting cancer.
long-term, very large study published in 2003 convinced most experts that
being overweight or obese significantly increases the likelihood of a person contract-
ing cancer.2 Another study identified very small particles in polluted air from motor
vehicle traffic as increasing the risk of lung cancer.
Some experts fear that while chemicals cannot be proven to cause most cancers
today, there is a possibility that chemical-related cancers may increase greatly in the
future because of the large increase in the production of carcinogenic chemicals since
the 1960s. Cancer can occur 15 to 40 years after the initial exposure to a carcinogen,
so chemicals may yet prove to be a major culprit.
experts
Also, a
The Workplace and the Home
Cancer
Chemicals
Pesticides
Managing Waste
Solid wastes
Toxic wastes
Governmental and industrial responses to the waste problem
Responsible Use
Resource efficiency
Recycling
Substitution
Reducing needs
Environmental Politics
Overdevelopment
Conclusions
Notes
Further Reading
224
224
225
226
228
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230
232
233
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236
Chemicals
236
238
238
You probably will prefer not to read the following statement, but if we are to present
this subject truthfully, we must give it: “Only a few hundred of the more than 80,000
chemicals in use in the United States have been tested for safety. How could this be
true, you might well ask? Read carefully the following explanation by the US Presi-
dent’s Cancer Panel and you will learn how:
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242
The Workplace and the Home
The prevailing regulatory approach in the United States is reactionary rather than pre-
cautionary. That is, instead of taking preventive action when uncertainty exists about
the potential harm a chemical or other environmental contaminant may cause, a hazard
must be incontrovertibly demonstrated before action to ameliorate it is initiated. More-
over instead of requiring industry or other proponents of specific chemicals, devices,
or activities to prove their safety, the public bears the burden of proving that a given
environmental exposure is harmful.”
Cancer
Cancer is often considered to be a disease of the industrial revolution. The US
National Cancer Institute estimates that one out of two males and one out of three
Not everything causes cancer, of course, but development has brought forth so
many new products in such a short time that we cannot be sure which ones do and
which do not. Barry Commoner shows that new products often bring large profits
to the first industry that introduces them, so there is a strong incentive for industries
Global Issues: An Introduction, Fifth Edition. Kristen A, Hite and John L. Seitz
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Environment: Part II
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Managing Waste
Solid wastes
15
Plate 7.1 Water pollution in the United States is partly caused by large amounts of pesticides,
herbicides, and fertilizers, which run off from fields during storms.
Source: Lynn Betts, US Department of Agriculture.
more goods and services become available, more are desired and less value is placed
on those already in hand. After the end of World War II, an unprecedented period of
economic growth in the industrialized world took place, leading to a huge increase
in the consumption of material goods.
As consumption rose, so did wastes. “Throwaway” products that were used briefly
and then discarded became common, as did items that wore out quickly. Such facts
disturbed few people in the United States since they found enjoyment in buying new,
“better” products. Many such products were relatively cheap in the 1950s, 1960s,
and early 1970s since energy and other raw materials were inexpensive. Between
1960 and 2000 the amount of solid wastes generated in the United States per person
annually grew by about 60 percent, until it reached about 1,600 pounds. On average
each American generated about 2.7 pounds of waste per day in 1960, whereas in 2012
this figure had grown to 4.4 pounds.16
One obvious way cities can help reduce and manage their citizens’ waste is to
support recycling programs, which many communities did to reduce the amoubo
of trash going to their landfills. Another way to reduce trash is to make citi.
zens pay variable costs for the disposal of their solid wastes, based on amount
and type. Seattle is an example of a US city that has successfully followed that
principle.
Seattle began charging its citizens according to the amount of trash they put out for
disposal. Yard wastes, such as grass clippings, if separated by the citizens so the city
could use them for composting, were charged at a much lower rate than regular trash,
and paper, glass, and metal (which could be recycled) were hauled away free. Seattle,
which was already more environmentally conscious than most other American cities
found that during the first year it started charging its citizens for the amount of waste
they produced, the total tonnage the city needed to haul to the landfills fell by about
20 percent. By the mid-1990s, 90 percent of the residents of Seattle were recycling
their waste.
Seattle has a zero waste goal as does San Francisco, Austin, in Texas, and Can-
berra, Australia. San Francisco is now diverting about 70 percent of city waste from
its landfills, mainly by its composting and recycling programs. It has been a grand
success. 17
A huge solid waste problem has been created by the growing use of plastics around
the world. This modern achievement of the chemical industry takes petroleum
and turns it into containers which are very difficult to break and won’t decay in
any individual’s lifetime. This last quality is what is causing the problem. Cur-
rent estimates are that sunlight might break plastic down over about 500 years
but there is no known living organism that can digest even a single molecule of
Every year about 250 billion pounds of plastic pellets are produced in the world.
A research sailing ship in the early twenty-first century found an area in the Pacific
Ocean about the size of the state of Texas – about 800 miles across (1,300 kilome-
19
ters) – filled with floating plastic debris. A Japanese scientist and his colleagues at
Tokyo University have discovered that floating plastic fragments in the sea contain
and absorb toxic chemicals such as DDT, PCBs, and other oily pollutants. Here is
how this problem has been described:
The potential scope of the problem is staggering. …When those pellets or products
degrade, break into fragments, and disperse, the pieces may also become concentrators
and transporters of toxic chemicals in the marine environment. Thus an astronomical
number of vectors for some of the most toxic pollutants known are being released into
an ecosystem dominated by the most efficient natural vacuum cleaners nature ever
invented: the jellies and salps living in the ocean. After those organisms ingest the tox-
ins, they are eaten in turn by fish, and so the poisons pass into the food web that leads,
in some cases, to human beings.20
In 2003 the research vessel that documented the huge floating body of plas-
tic debris in the Pacific took underwater photographs of transparent filter feeding
plastic. 18
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later,
eign
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to be innovative. New products, especially in the United States since World War II,
are often made of synthetic materials that pollute the environment, but the pollution
that “by the time the effects are known, the damage is done and the inertia of the
usually does not become evident until years after the introduction. Commoner states
heavy investment in a new productive technology makes a retreat extraordinarily
difficult.”6
Europe is active on this issue also. In 2007 the European Union approved a new law
that places more responsibility on chemical companies to manage the risks of their
chemicals and to provide safety information on the substances. Dangerous chemicals
are to be withdrawn when suitable substitutes are found. The law is being phased in
gradually, potentially impacting trade relations with the United States unless new
legislation is passed.
While chemicals offer potentially powerful technological solutions to environ-
mentally polluting activities, many industrial production processes still cause sig-
nificant health and environmental risks due to the fossil fuel and other chemical
discharges.? The vital need for major reforms in the chemical industry can be illus.
trated by one class of modern “miracle” chemicals that have been used to make such
popular products as Scotchgard stain protector, Teflon nonstick cookware, and Gore.
Tex water-resistant clothing. These fluorochemicals have been found in the blood of
sea and land animals, birds, and women in the Arctic. It is possible that these chemi
cals will never break down into harmless substances, and, according to the American
Red Cross, are now found in the blood of nearly all Americans from whom it receives
blood donations. To its credit, the 3M corporation stopped producing the chemical
used to make its popular Scotchgard product when some of this information become
known
lo
with them in the fields. Although DDT was banned for use in the United States in
special risk to the workers who manufacture them and to the farmers who work
1972, residues of it could still be found in most people in the United States 20 years
Pesticide use is increasing in the less wealthy nations – not just the use of short-
lived pesticides but of persistent pesticides such as DDT as well. The World Health
Organization has approved the use of DDT under certain conditions in developing
countries to control a resurgence of malaria. US law explicitly permits the sale to for-
i nations of substances that are banned, highly restricted, or unregistered in the
United States. US companies, as well as many in Europe, have increasingly turned
the overseas market to sell their products as more restrictions on the use of pesti-
pesticides; actually three-quarters of pesticides are used mainly in North America,
Western Europe, and Japan. 10 In 2007, the US Environmental Protection Agency
estimated world use of pesticides exceeded 5 million pounds, while US use alone
exceeded 1 million pounds, 11
In the early 1990s the US government announced that it was going to try to
reduce the amount of pesticides used on US farms. A five-year study by the US
National Academy of Sciences on the effect of agricultural chemicals on children
was published in 1993. It criticized the method the government had been using
to calculate the safe amount of pesticide residue on foods. It found that the risk
calculations by the government had not taken into account the fact that people
are also exposed to pesticides from sources other than on foods, such as in their
drinking water, on their lawns, and on golf courses. It found that infants and
children might be especially sensitive to pesticide residues on food. They consume
60 times the amount of fruit adults do, in relation to their weight, so are getting
higher doses of the pesticides that are used on fruits. And this is taking place early in
Pesticides
their lives
. The head of the committee that prepared the report drew the following
conclusion: “Pesticides applied in legal amounts on the farm, and present in legal
amounts on food, can still lead to unsafe amounts.”12 In 1999 the Environmental
Protection Agency responded to these concerns and banned most uses of a pesticide
widely used on fruit and vegetables
, and tightened restrictions on another
, because
of their possible harm to children. This was the first time the agency had issued
regulations specifically designed to protect children.” In 2005 the Environmental
Protection Agency issued new guidelines on the use of many chemicals which
recognized that children might be more at risk from the use of these chemicals than
The story of pesticide use illustrates well the dangers that new substances, which have
become so important to modern agriculture, have brought to people at their work-
places as well as in their homes at mealtime. Rachel Carson is credited with making
a whole nation – the United States – aware of the dangers of persistent pesticides
such as DDT. Her book Silent Spring, which appeared in 1962, shows how toxic
substances can become concentrated as they go up the food chain, as big animals
eat little animals. Since many toxic substances are not excreted by the plants or ani-
mals absorbing them, they accumulate and are passed on to the next animal that eats
them. Carson’s warning led to a sharp reduction in the use of long-lived pesticides in
many developed countries; but if she were alive today (she died of breast cancer in
1964), she would probably be disturbed to learn that short-lived but highly toxic pes-
ticides are now increasing in use in the United States. The use of herbicides has espe-
cially increased dramatically as farmers, railroad companies, telephone companies,
and others find it cheaper and easier to use these chemicals to get rid of unwanted
vegetation than to use labor or machines. These new highly toxic pesticides pose
adults. 14
Pesticides have played a significant role in the Green Revolution; it is doubtful
food production would have stayed ahead of population growth in the world without
them. What seems to be called for now is a highly selective use of pesticides, not their
banishment. A number of agricultural experts are now advocating a more balanced
program for controlling pests. A selective use of pesticides would go along with the
use of biological controls, such as natural predators, and other nonchemical means
to control pests.
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organisms with colored plastic fragments in their bellies.?’ In 2014, researchers esti.
mated that the patch actually weighed 100 times more than previously believed 22
manufacturers reported an additional 7 percent decline in toxic releases into the
air, water, and ground over the previous decade.27 This was progress, but the EPA
reported total land disposal of 2.75 billion pounds and air disbursement of 592.43
million pounds of waste in 2013.28
Toxic wastes
Oil in the Amazon: a legacy of toxic sludge
During the early years of Ecuador’s oil boom, the government and oil compa-
nies alike rushed to capitalize on some of the rich oil reserves in the Amazon
region. While technology enabled new reserves to be tapped and processed,
efforts to regulate the waste of byproducts did not keep pace with the rush of
moved on to fresh sources. Communities – many of whom are indigenous –
extra activity. As such, pits of oil sludge were often left behind as companies
continue to live with the legacy of the wastes. Many community members in
the northeastern part of Ecuador claimed they became sick due to the toxic
waste. Frustrated with the failure to clean up the oil sludge, they sued Chevron,
a company that inherited the messy legacy of the oil contamination from
earlier production activities. Although an Ecuadorian court held Chevron
responsible for much of the pollution-related damages, lengthy legal disputes
at the international level have impaired resolution, payments, and cleanup.
Billions of dollars are at stake, much of which is associated with legal fees and
some of which may be paid to the communities for damages.
The first warning of the danger of toxic wastes came from Japan. In the 1950s and
1960s hundreds of people were paralyzed, crippled, or killed from eating fish con-
taminated with mercury that had been discharged into Minamata Bay by a chemical
plant. It took many decades, but in 2014 the global community eventually adopted
the Minamata Treaty to address mercury pollution.23
The United States has been actively working to manage toxic wastes since the last
quarter of the twentieth century. Many people in a residential district of Niagara
Falls, New York, were exposed to a dangerous mixture of chemicals that were seep.
ing into their swimming pools and basements. Most of these people did not know
when they bought their homes that the Hooker Chemical Company had dumped
over 20,000 tons of chemical wastes in the 1940s and 1950s into a nearby aban-
doned canal
, ironically known as Love Canal. News of the Love Canal disaster spread
through the country as the story of the contamination slowly came out in spite of the
denials of the chemical company and the apathy of the local
government
. Eventually
hundreds of people were evacuated from the area. The state and federal governments
bought over 600 of the contaminated homes
. After putting a “wall” of clay and plas-
tic around the buried toxic waste, the federal government later declared much of the
Love Canal neighborhood fit for resettlement. The name of the neighborhood was
changed from Love Canal to Black Creek Village 24
For decades, the US Environmental Protection Agency required some of the
producers of toxic wastes to report annually how much they were releasing into
the environment. Two industries that produce the largest amount of toxic Wastes
the mining and oil exploration industries
– were exempt from the reporting
requirement.25 Half of all wastes subject to reporting were produced by the chemical
industry, with other significant amounts produced by the metal, oil refining, paper
,
and plastics industries.
This reporting law, formally called the Toxic Release Inventory, has been consid-
ered to be a very effective piece of legislation. Even the chemical industry, which
has worked to weaken it, has admitted that because of it, toxic emissions have been
reduced by about 50 percent. Very soon after the first report was released, several
large corporations announced that they would voluntarily reduce their emissions by
90 percent over the next three years. States and local residents have used the report
to put pressure on companies to reduce their pollution.26
In 1996 the reporting requirements were expanded to include, for the first time,
electric utilities, incinerator operators, recyclers, and many mining companies,
an increase of 6,400 new plants over the previous 23,000 that had to report toxic
emissions. By 2001, US manufacturers reported a nearly 15 percent decline from
the previous year in toxic releases into the air, water, and ground. And in 2013, US
than a decade of litigation on this case, see generally Huffington Post’s webpage on this lawsuit, at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/chevron-ecuador-lawsuit/. For the Ecuadorian plaintiffs
side of the story, see www.chevrontoxico.org and for the defendant company’s version of the story,
see http://www.chevron.com/ecuador/ (all accessed July 2015).
The persistence of some toxic chemicals is shown by the fact that byproducts of
the chemical used to make stain protectors in ca…
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