My part in the debate was to talk about the moral issues and implications of putting economic growth ahead of the environment. I wanted to put forward the idea that even though the world does need to grow economically to sustain the growing populations this should no way be at the cost of the environment. I wanted to argue this point as I feel people are just beginning to wake up to the fact that we are seriously damaging the environment in many different ways. An article in the Guardian recently proved this by using a poll carried out by ICM a member of the British polling council. This poll found that 52% of those polled believed that the government’s main priorities should be environmental problems rather than economic problems. Should this not mean that our government should spend more on combating the current environmental situation than the economic crisis?
I feel that the moral issue of economic growth vs. environment is directly connected to socio economic groups and more recently the current economic situation. The more money people earn in most cases decides how much disposable income they have, the more disposable income they have the more they can spend on positive environmental/ethical products and services, and the more they can avoid products and services from countries or companies that have been proved to be damaging the environment, disregarding peoples human rights or flaunting labour laws. This is backed up by the article from the Guardian which I spoke about earlier as it states through research that “Attitudes and purchasing are more likely to be shaped by how much money people have and how much they might have to pay.” Glover, J 2008
Of course economic growth is an important factor in the evolution of our society but so is the preservation of what flora and fauna we have left. But our society is one that puts the wealth and power in the hands of the rich, such as multi-national companies. A prime example of this is by allowing national and multi-national corporations carte blanche to develop and pollute our lands for their own massive monetary and economic gain, providing small or no economic gain for the people and a seriously detrimental effect on the natural environment.
These companies expand and grow at the cost of the environment, as many of their main trades and interests involve exploiting the marine or terrestrial environment for example mining, commercial fishing, commercial forestry, commercial farming, oil exploitation, exploration and transportation. The multi-nationals have stockholders and employees to pay and keep happy, so they must make money. Governments, especially those in developing countries, which still have natural resources or land available to exploit relax their environmental and other laws to allow companies to pay them huge licenses and rights to do this, and even sometimes bribes. Although sometimes benefiting the people of that country most of the time it just benefits the government or individuals who do not put anywhere as much money that was earned from the exploitation of the environment back into conservation or management. An example of this is Indonesia selling large amounts of forest to multi-national companies for the cultivation of palm plants for palm oil for foreign export and use, which leaves the land totally unusable for cultivation of anything else and of no use to local farmers and attributing to worldwide deforestation.
It is not just third world countries who are guilty of pandering to the multinationals requests and demands. The writer Danielle Knight quotes Joshua Karliner in her very interesting article entitled “Development vs. Environment” proving this point very well with this quote “One clear example of this, says Karliner, has been the success of powerful multinational oil and gas industries in swaying the US Senate against ratifying the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, an international treaty seeking to reduce emissions of heat-trapping 'greenhouse' gases” Knight, D 1999
An example of this multi-national led economic growth impacting on the environment is happening in the mangrove forests on the Caribbean coasts of Mexico, known as the Maya Rivera, a paper published on the WRM (world rainforest movement) website reports that “The mangroves and beaches off the Caribbean Coast of Mexico, known as the Maya Riviera, are being destroyed by more and more infrastructure for tourism built at a quick pace. Some people consider that this may benefit --at least temporally-- the local economy as this creates jobs and stimulates cash flow, but the long range results are devastating.” www.wrm.org.uy. As a result of this economic growth, for tourism and the creation of hotels, golf courses and of course to make a huge amount of money, the local environment will severely suffer. Which will have a knock on effects on the worldwide environment as it will stretch it even further to bursting point as the article from the world rainforest movements website continues to say “This aquatic forest ecosystem, vital to the life of the coast, reef, and food chain to so many mammals, is being sacrificed for the benefit of investors in hotels, malls, golf courses, convention halls, and shopping centres that are being erected at the cost of one of the world's precious natural resources.” www.wrm.org.uy. I am also sure that the hotels, golf courses and shopping centres are not for the locals who many are living on the poverty line.
I leave this short summary with a quote I found during my research from an excellent article. The quote says exactly what I feel about the situation and also how I think most people in the UK are starting to think about it too.
“The challenge in the 21st century is to replace the corporate-dominated paradigm that worships the bottom-line with a framework that puts the environment, human rights, and labour rights first”
Karliner J, 1999 from Knight, D. 1999 article “Development vs. Environment”
Key debating points
• There has been a change in people’s opinions over environmental issues
• People are willing to spend more money on products and services if they will impact on the environment less
• The natural environment is extremely important to our way of life
• Economic growth has a detrimental effect on the planets flora and fauna and natural resources
• Multinational companies are sucking the planet dry of its natural resources and this is not sustainable “the nature crunch”
• Multinational companies are willing to risk the planets health to increase their profits even though they are aware of the associated problems with economic growth, i.e. USA stumbling over Kyoto agreement
Evaluation of debate
The debate held in class in my opinion went well with many valid points being debated and some interesting ideas being brought forward by both sides of the house. The running order of the debate went well with both sides giving informative opening statements which clearly set out what their take on the question would be and their key topics. Everyone’s individual argument was a valid point whether they were arguing for or against and made logical sense in adding towards each team’s general take on the proposition. All the key debating points included varied and interesting facts and figures that backed up the individual debate points.
Both teams debated points that they felt valid towards there main arguments but at some points during the debate, the debate points did not mesh with the other teams debate points. This could have been made better my having a longer discovery session with maybe each team producing a document that outlined their main debate points.
I think my team worked well together, we had several meetings and a lot of research was done, after the discovery session we were able to still use a large amount of it as the information worked well against the other teams key points. We appointed a chair person, Alex, which worked really well as she was able to co-ordinate the research and get a general overview of how well prepared we were.
Although I didn’t get to debate my point as much as I would of liked due to technical difficulties, which I have learned not to rely on!, I contributed to most other peoples individual points with supporting information and opinions.
References
Glover, J., 2008. Climate more urgent than economy, say voters. The Guardian. 7 July 2008
Knight, D., 1999.Development vs Enviroment. Third world network[online]. December 1999 Available at http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/1998.htm. accessed 14/11/08
Mexico: mangrove destruction by tourism and shrimp farming for world rainforest movement website, April 1999,[online]. Available at http://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin/22/mexico.html accessed 14/11/08
Biolography
Monbiot, G.,2008. This is what denial does[online]available at http://monbiot.com/archives/2008/10/14/this-is-what-denial-does/ accessed 16/11/08
