Do Environmental Restrictions Violate Basic Economic Freedoms

Do Environmental Restrictions Violate Basic Economic Freedoms?

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Do Environmental Restrictions Violate Basic Economic Freedoms?

Introduction

Everyone in the world today desires a clean and healthy environment. People also require a strong economy. However, environmental conservation is extremely expensive, suffocates economic opportunity and costs jobs. On the contrary, before the government came in with legislations, vigorous economic activities, for instance manufacturing, resulted in a fading and detrimental environment. The truth is that all everyone in the world wants is a high quality of life. However, this is being met at the expense of the very source of their livelihoods. This paper discusses whether environmental restrictions violate basic economic freedoms.

YES:

“It is critical for legislators worldwide to indicate that good objectives are more often than not accompanied by irrational and tyrannical regulations. There is a need for them to explain that the efficiency use of natural resources is not being disputed rather the question is how best this can be done through government directives and guidance. They need to let governments know that most executive solutions to environmental challenges tend to clash with primary economic freedoms” (Hardin, 2008).

NO:

“The human race is facing a gradual environmental destruction. Analysts are patiently waiting to see if world civilizations will dodge the destructive trap they have set for themselves. As much as some progress has been made in an attempt to deal with humanity’s dilemma, there is still much that is required to be done. It is unfortunate that most of the progress that have been registered in comprehending, seeking and describing solutions for the human predicament in the last three decades is being destabilized by environmental criticism” (Edmonds, 2006).

LO1: The Wider Implications and Effects of GCC, European and Global Integration on Organizations.

YES Hardin, 2008

Implications

The implications of environmental regulations in GCC, European and global integration have become complex and highly emotive. If sustainable development is to be attained, then this issue should be solved urgently. Due to worldwide economic interdependence as well as trade, liberalization combined with increasing environmental pressure there is a rapid interface between global trade integration and the environment. It is widely acknowledged that the environment and trade could mutually support each other. However, there are still disparities on effectual execution. The liberalization of trade through globalization has both positively and negatively impacted the environment. There is thus an ardent need of policy formulation in organizations to ensure that the net effect is positive (Christopher, 2007).

Legislations

One critical way of guaranteeing that the environment and trade are mutually supportive is by ensuring that globalization is paralleled with the intensification and development of successful and non-protectionist legislations on the environment at global, national and regional levels. Environmental policies do not offer incentives for work place technological innovations; this in effect does not promote economic effectiveness.

Relationship between Trade and Environment

The complex relationship between the environment and international trade was first debated in the 1992 Rio conference. This was followed by the 1996 World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial conference where it was determined that a constructive relationship should have been built between work place sustainable development, trade and the environment. However, this relationship has not yet been built to date. Instead, there have been various environmental restrictions ranging from Sustainable Impact Assessments (SIAs), as well as CBTF (Capacity Building Taskforce on Trade Environment and Development) that have not assisted much (Panayotou, 2005).

NO: Edmonds, 2006

Sustainable Development

In the Doha1996 talks, the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) committed WTO members to guarantee that the result of the new round of talks would support sustainable development. The DDA mandated the CTE (Committee on Trade and Environment) to commence negotiations on particular aspects of environment and international trade relationships. The objective of these negotiations was to clarify the relationships between Multilateral Environmental agreements (MEAs) and WTO agreements. This was to be done while covering observer status and information exchange between MEA secretariats and WTO committees in order to liberalize trade in environmental services and goods (Babcock, 2006).

Liberalization of Environmental Goods

The DDA negotiations focused on eliminating tariffs and other barriers to environmental goods, for instance air filters and catalytic converters. The European Union perceived the liberalization of environmental goods as a primary tool to obtaining sustainable development. This has been heralded as a visible win-win situation for both international trade and environmentalists. It can favor the conservation of the environment in GCC countries through enabling them purchase environmental goods at lower prices (Christopher, 2007).

Eco labels

In Doha, ministers asked the CTE to be more attentive in several issues of its work layout. These included the impact of environmental regulations on market access, particularly for GCCs and a win-win situations when eliminating trade barriers to benefit the environment, sustainable development and trade. The position of the WTO Environmental Committee (EC) is that eco labeling schemes should be transparently designed according to international standards in order to avoid the creation of trade barriers. The European Union, on the other hand, feels that WTO members should consider technically assisting GCCs to enable them to conform to export markets eco labeling schemes. The flower, which is the European Union Eco label, allowed non-EU companies to penetrate the European market, thus positively effecting their work places (Panayotou, 2005).

LO2: Investigate the range and effects of legislation, directives and guidance and the processes organizations need to adopt

YES Hardin, 2008

The issues

Thirty years ago, when people started experiencing deterioration in the quality of their lives, they started supporting hard line policies to minimize pollution. These policies recurrently failed to match the claims of their sponsors. They also turned out to be rapidly and gratuitously expensive. Nonetheless, there was an improvement in the quality of the environment, particularly in the beginning. Today, individuals are rapidly getting informed that most of these policies are irrational and that even if they finally work out they result only in minute advances and at profound costs in economic freedoms and jobs. People globally are also beginning to realize that there is no real scientific basis for affirmation of harm to the environment or hazards to the public. The pendulum as envisaged is finally swinging in the opposite direction (Joan, 2007).

Logic in Dealing with the Environment

Conservatives worldwide, for instance Chinese, do not wish to go back to times when black smoke bulged from vents. However, they point out that logic can prevail when dealing with the environment. They believe that it is feasible for the environment to be conserved without necessarily sacrificing the freedoms for which world democracies uphold. Conservative legislature’s world over should, thus, be emphatic on the following issues: Economic freedom, regulatory abuse, an ethic of conservation, priority setting, and property based solutions and sound science (Babcock, 2006).

Legislators have a duty of explaining to governments that environmental conservation can be obtained by not providing many pages for people to evade rather by capitalizing on the inducement related to property ownership. Apart from that, they should argue that policies that are required by people in the world today should be based on sound science rather than tabloid science. Legislators need to explain that not all challenges are of the same significance and immediate regulations of all challenges may result to saving few lives while wasting lots of money (Baird, 2010).

NO: Edmonds, 2006

The Scientific Perception

The backlash by organizations is an outpouring of apparently authoritative opinions in media appearances, books and articles. They tend to alter what environmental scientists do not know. Put together in spite of the variety of their issues, forms and sources addressed, this backlash has generated a distortion of empirical science findings to support a political agenda and a predetermined world perception. Because of persistent repetition, this anti-environmental flood sentiment has attained a regrettable sensation of authority (Hirsch, 2009).

Right Wing ideology

This backlash is not synchronized in nature; instead, it seems to be created by diverse organizations. Some of these organizations are related to political groupings that have a right wing ideology. The extreme organizations are those that claim to represent a scientific perception only to hold up their perception that countries are going overboard with regulations, particularly as far as environmental conversation is concerned. They claim that restrained long-term challenges, for instance global warming, are not anything to be scared of. Such sentiments are not only troubling but they also obstruct and extend the already challenging task for reasonable and pragmatic solutions to humanity’s dilemma (Czech, 2008).

Most organizations readily seize issues that surround things that are familiar and physical for instance a local dumpsite. However, they have lots of difficulty with genetic variations or atmospheric dynamics. Consequently, it is easier to get organizational support against landfills than imposition of carbon tax to counteract global warming. Apart from that, organizations that are not trained to acknowledge the features of change face challenges in identifying and understanding the slow deterioration of humanity’s life support systems. For this reason, violent hurricanes get lots of attention while an increase in global temperatures is not thought out to be news (Joan, 2007).

Humanity Is a Threat to Itself

Organizations also have an inclination of focusing on more noticeable and instantaneous environmental problems typically described as contamination at the cost of declining natural ecosystems on whose sustained functioning humanity depends. They do not realize that humanity is a threat to itself through interfering on earth’s natural cycles. They pour into the oceans 200 percent of natural oil that emanates from natural seeps. They are also responsible for 50 percent of methane concentration in the atmosphere. While these organizations indicate that environmental conservation has improved scientific scrutiny indicates otherwise.

LO 3: Explore the socio-cultural, ethical and moral issues that affect organizations in the current economic environment to establish and implement good practice

Yes Hardin, 2008

The Facts

Pollution levels have dramatically fallen since 1970 when most pollution reductions were achieved at comparatively low costs. Two decades later, the emission levels had fallen by 39 percent, the same period witnessed a 97 percent and 41 percent fall in lead and carbon dioxide levels respectively. Government controls, however, have led to a slow down of these reductions.

Unworkable Controls

Regulating the environment has more negative impacts than just its high costs. Legislators should employ rapid litany of disgusting stories to show how ill regarded environmental controls while conveying little benefit lead to unintentional consequences for business, particularly Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which are unreasonably owned and run by the minority. In the mid-80s, Cristobel Johnson’s family owned a sawmill in which they employed 30 workers in New Jersey. Based on harvest guarantees from the American forest service and loan assurances from the SMEs administrators, they invested $1.2 million in their business. However, in 1991 the spotted owl sanctions closed their mill making their equipments valueless and their expertise insignificant. The same government that had initially encouraged them to take the loan took away their capacity to pay it back (Panayotou, 2005).

Given that most organizations have an ambivalence approach to environmental conservation, it is very critical for conformists to approach this issue in a logical manner. Individuals must comprehend that it is not a must for environmental protection to be implemented at the expense of jobs. However, it is likely to cost jobs if organizations do not set aside the socialist model that they employ in conserving the environment (Christopher, 2007).

NO: Edmonds, (2006)

Healthy Environments

Most organizations are threatened by efforts geared towards preserving healthy environments. Loggers find themselves jobless when the endangered species act is enforced. Ranchers’ livelihoods are threatened by higher fees for public grazing lands. Libel suits for damages on the environment threaten Petrochemical Company executives. These lead to an unethical total resentment by organizations of policies and suggestions to enhance the wellbeing of humanity because of the social cultural way in which they perceive things (Baird, 2010).

Wise Use Socio-Cultural Movement

It is unfortunate that most of these organizations have been engaged in the wise use socio-cultural movement. It has attracted an immense coalition of groups that includes executives of extracting and mining organizations motivated by their profits and right wing ideologies. As much as some of these organizations perceive that environmental controls unjustly distribute environmental protection costs, others are unethically and immorally motivated by a gluttonous desire for uninhibited economic expansion (Edmonds, 2006).

Unhampered Environmental Exploitation

The wise use socio-cultural movement steadfastly opposes government efforts to sustain environmental quality through postulating that environmental measures create pointless and oppressive barriers that suppress economic growth. They see no need for restrictions in the exploitation of environmental resources for immediate economic profits. They opine that this kind of exploitation can be stepped up without unfavorable lasting consequences. The wise use, thus, advocates unhampered drilling and excavation in protected areas, national forests and parks with full reimbursement for any loss of property value due to environmental measures. By advocating the perception that instantaneous economic interests are served best by maintaining the business as usual status quo, the wise use activists stir up restlessness amongst the rest of the world populations who feel ill-treated by environmental controls (Hirsch, 2009).

Wise use supporters are not honest about their objectives and enthusiasm. Most of the organizations that join them impersonate groups’ conscious of environmental quality. They acquire names that resemble genuine public interest advocates through aggressive mimicry only to work against their implied interests in what is referred to as green scamming. For instance, the WeBabcockers for More Fish sought to minimize federal protection of endangered fish to ensure that restrictions are not imposed on extracting industries in the area that used the river’s waters. Armed with millions of dollars in their budget, they funded some legislators’ campaigns and indeed the legislators managed to pass a bill that limited funding to environmental conservation of a national park (Czech, 2008).

Conclusion

Habitually conservatives have emphasized on economic growth at the expense of environmental challenges. They have battled environmentalists all along and they have lost all along. Environmentalists have had the moral high standing; this is in spite of the fact that they characteristically have not offered the most favorable solutions. Environmentalists have been on the wrong side of an emotive issue.

Postscript

The dilemmas facing this generation as it attempts to adjust its lifestyle to the requirements of an environment that is suddenly threatened are the hardest ever known. It is not just about being ordered to refrain from a number of profitable activities to conserve the environment, there is a likelihood of people being requested to cut back on sections of their livelihoods that they may have taken for granted. For instance, to cut back on carbon emissions, people would not be allowed to drive cars unless it is in emergency cases. A time is coming when people around the world will be told by their governments to separate their trash into organic waste, plastics, paper, glass and metals and to send it for recycling and subsequent reuse. However, these choices will be made by individuals through democratic suffrage and subsequent legislations. In such a situation an alternative is not envisaged for that could mean the end of the biosphere and that includes humanity.

References

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