Oral Health, Capitalism, Environmentalism and conflicts thereof.

Capitalism and environmentalism often end up in conflict with one another.  The most economical option for a company’s expansion is often not the most ecological option.  This is due to unsustainable resources usually being cheaper than sustainable and that, a majority of the time, it costs more to dispose of wastes in an Earth friendly manner than to dump the wastes in a landfill.

Although the costs of for a company are usually lower when they do not make the environment a prime concern in their decision making, the costs for society as a whole are higher.  If the business world continues to attach only small weight to environmental concerns, current resources will eventually be depleted.  Business costs will skyrocket if technology cannot bail out consumers with the ability to tap a new resource.

Even with technology making new resources available, as long as these resources continue not to be sustainable, the human race will devour the planet until it becomes inhospitable.  To avoid this we can change the way the world does business by placing a higher priority on environmental protection now.  Provided below is an analysis of four different examples of business actions that can be described as: good for a business firm and society, good for just the business firm and bad for society, bad for the business firm but good for society and an example of an action that is bad for both.

 

Global Energy Concepts is a company that could enter into a developing African country with their wind turbines.  Being apart of the huge growth that will be occurring in developing African countries in the near future could provide decades of business projects for Global Energy Concepts.  Since many of these nations do not have the established infrastructure of a power lines, power plants and dams the wind turbines are extremely cost competitive.

The opportunity for the developing African nations to build a sustainable energy resource like wind turbines that could provide a large portion of their energy would benefit society.  By relying on wind turbines, these countries can avoid the use power generators that cause severe negative effects on the environment like nuclear power, coal, natural gas and oil.  Even dams, although sustainable, destroy tree habitats and often flood citizens off their treeside properties.

 

 

Office Depot using trees from tropical rainforests in Central and South America to make paper is an example of an action that is good for the Office Depot, but not good for society.  The Office Depot buys the trees from those areas since the trees are the cheapest available.  They save money on making paper, which increases their profits on paper.  The Office Depot can also price their paper at a low cost to undercut competitors and bring in customers who will then end up spending money on other products.

This action by the Office Depot does not benefit society as a whole.  The Central and South Americans cut down acre after acre of rainforest.  Rainforests provide benefits for society like purifying the air of toxins, changing carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen and providing a home to much of the world’s biodiversity. 

Currently, recycling programs throughout the country manage to lose money, but continue to operate within city, county and state budgets.  These programs lose money for many factors like the fact that aluminum represents a large portion of recycled goods and the price of aluminum has dropped substantially in the last ten years.

Many of the recycling programs continue to operate due to community support and lack of landfill space.  These programs keep the government from creating landfills full of pollutants and garbage across the country.  Also, recycled goods provide resources that would otherwise need to be pulled from the Earth through environmentally damaging activities like deforestation and mining.  Recycling programs also create jobs in the form of collectors and sorters.  Lastly, recycling programs help keep the society conscious of environmental concerns.

The European Union stands as a prime example of conducting business decisions that hurt the business, the EU, and society as a whole.  Their policy on farmer subsidies creates incredible amounts of inefficiencies for the EU countries.  The EU financially supports farmers with large percentages of the yearly budget.  That means billions and billions of dollars are being used to support inefficient production in free market societies.

If the EU were to stop providing subsidies, small farmers would eventually readjust and become productive members of society.  Money could be spent on education, health care and other structures that provide a benefit to a society.  In the current capitalist world economy, governments seem to be the only organizations that consistently perform actions that provide negative results for themselves and for society.  In order not to upset the happiness and stability of life for certain citizens, they forego their own and society’s potential.

Each of these examples provides a just a taste of the thousands and thousands of other business actions that occur daily.  Most business actions could be framed in quadrants II, followed by III, then I and, finally, IV. Tradeoffs exist for most companies between earning the most profits and protecting the environment.  The question that is hard to answer is where in the continuum, between profits and environment, does society gain the most long term benefits?
2.
Taylor faces a frequently appearing situation for many Americans.  Like many Americans, Taylor supports protecting the environment through actions like recycling.  Yet, when do other factors such as the loss of time and money begin to outweigh Taylor’s will power to recycle and to protect the environment?

From the problem description, one can determine a few things about Taylor.  He seems to be willing to recycle his plastic bags if all has to do is collect them and then bring them to a nearby recycling center.  Taylor will spend time collecting and delivering the bags as well as the gas money used to deliver the bags.  This example will be used as the comparable standard for all other options.  Hypothetically, this is Taylor’s least costly option and what is he known to be willing to do.

One option for Taylor would be to collect bags until he ended up taking a trip to somewhere that has recycling station.  Since plastic bags pack so small, one man could fit all of a years worth of plastic bags within a small duffel bag.  That means three to five years of plastic bags could be stored in a large duffel bag and 20 years of bags in a few large garbage bags.  Midwesterners often have plenty of space and land, so storing the bags would probably not provide too much hassle.

Taylor could give the plastic bags to someone else as well.  If his parents or friends came to visit, he could give them the bags to take home and recycle.   Or, if someone in his town is about to travel to someplace with a recycling station, he could give the bags to them.  Most Americans believe in recycling and would, therefore, probably take the bags without charging Taylor, especially his parent and friends.  The costs of these two actions as far as time and money would be cheaper than any other previously mentioned option. 

Since plastic bags are so light, Taylor could even send them to a recycling station.  If he used relatively slow and inexpensive shipping, this option would add little more costs than driving to a station if one were near.  The time it takes to do this would be near the same too.

Up until now all of the proposed ideas for Taylor focus on his own personal recycling.  Taylor may desire to spark the movement for a local recycling program in his Midwestern town for plastic bags.  In the Jackson area, many grocery stores provide bins at their store locations for returning customers to recycle their plastic bags.  Convincing a grocery store in Taylor’s town to do this would probably take at least a few hours, but a minimal amount of money.

He could write letters to the store manager, or go in and speak with her/him.  To convince to manager, Taylor may need to show that the community wants a recycling bin for their plastic bags.  Creating and documenting this support to show to the manager could potentially take weeks.

 

If the grocery store were not willing to recycle the bags themselves, they may be willing to offer discounts of a couple cents to Taylor and others who bring in the plastic bags and reuse them each time they go shopping.  That will cut down on Taylor’s consumption and save him a few cents as well.  The time to present this to a manager could be as little as a couple hours.  Reusing plastic bags would not any time for Taylor since he could just keep a few in the trunk of his car.

If Taylor were willing to spend the time gathering support for a recycling bin in the grocery, lobbying the local city or county could be the next step.  By gathering signatures of local citizens he could try to convince government officials of the community of the people’s desire for a recycling program.  This would take considerably more time and money than any other option.  Yet, since in both the grocery store and local government options Taylor would be helping the environment hundreds to thousands of times more than if he just worked on dealing with his own plastic bags, he may feel inspired to follow through.

There are many other ideas that would not cost Taylor any money and only a couple minutes of time.  He could donate the plastic bags to grade schools that could cut the bags in to strips and use the strips in projects like wreaths or floor mats.  Taylor could also recycle the plastic bags as trash bags for small garbage can in his own house.  Of ten churches and shelters need the plastic bags to put food in that they hand out to the needy.  Around the house the bags can cover paint brushes to keep them from drying out, hold dirty or wet clothes to keep them separate from clean clothes in suitcases, be stuffed in to packing boxes as a substitute to Styrofoam and put to use in many other ways.

The idea behind all these options is that Taylor can always find something to do with the plastic bags instead of throwing them away.  Many projects only take a few minutes and no money to complete.  The more time and money Taylor is willing to put in, the more of a positive affect he can make on the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.
Both legal arrangements, A and B, will produce different results for the conflict between Smith and Jones.  The main difference between the two legal arrangements that can change the outcome of the conflict is that Jones has some legal power in arrangement B, while he does not have legal power in arrangement A.

Jones wants to earn income through teaching his knowledge of mediation to classes.  The odor of the manure keeps Jones from enrolling as many people as he would like in his classes.  Therefore, Jones must devise a means to keep his students from smelling manure so they stay in his classes. 

Under legal arrangement A, Jones does not have any legal power to keep Smith from spreading manure on the organic vegetable farm whenever Smith chooses.  None of the government’s tools of enforcement such as loss of money, loss of property or loss of freedom are at Jones’ disposal.  Instead, Jones must rely on civil methods to achieve his needs.

Since this class is taught at a public university that has a moral code uphold, I will assume Jones will only commit to acts that are within legal bounds i.e. Jones will not be breaking any laws.  Some of the options available to Jones are meeting with Smith, meeting with the other neighbors or meeting with government officials.  If all else fails, Jones can always find a way to move his school.

If Jones decides to meet with Smith, they will need to work out a compromise.  Some comprises that may work:

• Jones and Smith will schedule the school breaks and use of manure at the same time so no students are around when the odor is bad.
• Jones could financially, or in other ways, compensate Smith to use some supplementary, less odorous, means of adding nutrients to his farm
• Jones could buy Smith’s farm

By talking with the other neighbors, Jones could figure out if they too are troubled by the odor.  If the neighbors dislike the odor as well, everyone could get together and approach Smith to work out a compromise.  Also, the neighbors could put on rallies in front of Smith’s property.  The neighbors could attack Smith’s social needs by shunning him.

One more option available to Jones would be to convince local officials to pass a law that would give Jones the legal power to force Smith to cooperate with him.  This would take Jones right into the same place if legal arrangement B was in affect.  Before arrangement B is discussed, notice that without legal power supporting Jones, Smith has the legal right to continue to use the manure.  Jones may never be able to keep Smith from using manure if Smith is stubborn and does not care about the needs of others.

 

Under legal arrangement B, Jones potentially has the power to keep Smith from using manure on his organic farm.  If Smith refuses to adhere initially, Jones has the power to call on the police and U.S. military to back up the laws.  As far as Smith is concerned, the decision of the law is absolute.

The issue boils down to whether or not the government, and all the power it can wield, will support Jones.  According to the problem statement, an impartial examiner listens to testimonies and decides if “offensive odors…negatively impact neighbors.”  If Jones convinces the students who left his class to give testimony to the examiner and they state that they left the mediation school because of the smell, Smith will be at fault.  The government will either impose fines and/or order Smith not to use manure in the future.

Legal arrangement B actually gives the ability to Jones to make Smith stop using fertilizer.  While in contrast, legal arrangement A provides Jones with plenty of ways to convince Smith to change his manure using ways, but Smith will still have the option to use the manure if he so chooses.