Global Environment and Economy
Whether it be through intensified media attention, or due to the efforts of prominent scientists and other members of society, we have become increasingly aware of the detrimental effects that technological advances in industry and agriculture have on the global environment. However, as Carl Sagan points out in "Pulling the Plug on Mother Earth" awareness is not enough, nor is society's response to the catastrophic implications of environmental pollution rapid enough. Slowness to implement sound strategies are in part due to the fact that the threats we face are nebulous, since they come in the form of particles of invisible gases and radioactivity, and in part because response to pollution appears to be so costly at individual, governmental and corporate levels. It appears that great material loss, as well as visual manifestation, have been the only ways to galvanize action towards altering and limiting technologies so that adverse chemicals and substances are no longer belched into the environment. For example, Sagan is right on the mark when he indicates that it took the reality that CFCs were destroying the sensitive but protective ozone layer to encourage large chemical companies to begin a gradual phase-out of these substanc
The policy-makers would choose the technology to be used to produce goods. Decisions that were made decades ago, such as automobile transit phasing out train transit, and the manufacture of energy through the building of nuclear plants, effect and influence us right now at very fundamental levels. However, the immense problem regarding the lobbying and bipartisan influences on the government cannot be ignored. Implementation of governmental governmental policies and programs designed to improve the environment fail because there is no incentive for legislators to determine the costs and benefits of their legislation, as there is a lack of appropriate experience in the matter. Current technologies available have been incorporated into lifestyle at a very practical level. In the interim, we are risking danger to the food chain, global warming, and increased cases of skin cancer. Commoner explains that it is a long-term incentive to find alternative sources of fuel, such as sunlight, that will not deplete at the rate fossil fuels do, and after an initial investment, take very little monetary capital to maintain. According to Reilly, the government is creating adequate market incentives to curb pollution, encourage energy efficiency and waste reduction through low-cost programs, in conjunction with the private sector. How to properly change the way that industrial decisions are made, especially by the "sacred cow" of auto manufacturing, is not clear. Commoner indicates that as time passes, an increasing amount of capital will be spent on fuel and energy to produce goods. Legislators focus only on the appearance of implementing solutions for the popular vote, then allow their decisions to be clouded by lobbyists and political maneuverings. For example, new regulatory standards have to be met on national, rather regional levels, and technologies are mandated without the expertise to determine their practicality and availability. Third, if the plan was implemented, the question remains as to who would decide on the technologies, and what mechanism would ensure that these persons would not be influenced by some lobbying power. It is one thing to agree that car travel pollutes the environment, and to see dense smog in the Los Angeles Basin, but millions will still get in their vehicles tomorrow to drive their jobs. The large cogs of public and private interests also turn slowly due to this infrastructure of product usage which has become so firmly entrenched.
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Acceptance Essays
