Voted B - Agree. However, there is actually not much disagreement in the nation on this question. Rather the disagreement is over how much regulation is prudent, how much can be incentivized via tax policy or other private sector methods, and how such regulations are implemented and at what level of government - Federal, state or local.
In general, it is recognized that private entities will produce, incidental to their work, impacts that have a collective impact. Such impacts do not directly impact the businesses that cause them and thus such businesses will not, on their own, likely voluntarily pay their costs.
Economists call such impacts "externalities." They have long been recognized even in earlier eras where the free market was more unfettered and there was far less emphasis on the environment. See also some of the reforms under the 19th century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli as well as, for example, the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 in the USA.
The real debate in the United States currently is over to what extent it is more efficient to incentivize private entities to implement environmental reforms, and what issues are real and not - seethe debate over climate change as Exhibit A.
Basically, this comes down to a debate over the extent and credibility of the scientific data as well as a measure of the cost/benefit trade-offs and a question of the degree to which the public should bear the costs as against private entities. Unfortunately, because Americans have a bad habit of moralizing absolutely everything, these trade-offs tend to be debated in absolutist black & white terms rather than in terms of cost/benefit analysis.
In truth, though, the country has long accepted the idea that some degree of environmental regulation is needed. Indeed, one of the ironies of the regulatory system is that government must turn to those who are the most well versed on industry and the science. Thus in the end, the regulations end up being written, at least in part, by the very industries that are regulated by them.
It being axiomatic that the more things a society wants government to do - be it cure diseases, address poverty, or clean the environment - the more dependent upon industry, academia, the bureaucracy, in a word, the elites, it becomes. This then producing resentments against the very authorities the public needs to achieve its goals.
Thus then the populist age that gives the nation, ironically, both Donald Trump and Joseph Biden. Before them, the likes of William Jennings Bryan and John Buchanan of the Farmer's Party. The nation has been here before.
Sadly, I agree. I'm a believer in reasonable regulations. I wish that wasn't necessary but I'm a realist.
Really? PETA is a corporation, so is Greenpeace, and Earthjustice, as well as the Natural Resource Defense Council, as well as all of the for profit corporations out there… in the United States, they are as regulated, or more regulated than corporations other countries. The auto industry is regulated by CAFE regulations. Title 40, Code of Federal Regulations Is just one of the laws that allows the EPA to regulate companies doing business within the US. A quick search using the word environment yields 3751 separate regulations with untold pages of specific regulations in each. We already regulate the shit out of corporations, and with rejoining the Paris Accord, which requires the Us and Europe to do stuff like stop the use of coal (not a bad idea), but it exempts countries like India, Pakistan, and China… all more populated than the US yet China is supposedly a “developing nation”? Even though China likely already has a bigger economy than the US, thousands of miles of high speed rail, near TOTAL ubiquity in surveillance of its citizens, but they are seriously just a developing nation? Those three countries are building new coalfire power plants EVERY DAY! Yet WE are the ones who get fined if all new cars are not electric by 2024! Ice in the Arctic Circle has a thin black coating on it from coal dust… Not from the US or Canada… From China, India, and Pakistan! Yet WE are the ones who need MORE regulations? I’m not sure you realize this but naturally white snow and ice reflects the suns heat, but adding a black coating absorbs the suns heat, which makes the ice melt faster! In the last 4 years, the United States reduced its carbon emissions more than any country on earth, and that was done after we withdrew from the PCA. But if you believe we need more regulations… okay, you are entitled to your opinion. I just tend to disagree! Corporations fold to the demands of a tiny, but very vocal minority on Twitter. That would seem to be more effective than expensive regulations! But again, that’s just my humble opinion.
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They said that about worker safety and they used that to justify OCEA. They then point to graphs showing a decline in worker accidents once OCEA was created. What people who push for this don't show you is that for decades prior to OCEA those worker accidents where declining and at the same rate before and after OCEA's founding.
If you look at countries, the ones that have the least amount of pollution are industrialized nations because they no longer have to worry about dying from disease so they can focus on fixing up their nations and the pollution. Take the US for instance, when Trump reduced regulations on businesses what happend? We decreased our emissions not just more then what Obama had promised for the paris climate accords, but we where the only nation to actually do so, every other nation failed in their obligations and many increased omissions.
Now look at states that have high regulations, are they better off then other states? No. California banned plastic straws claiming straws where killing the planet and as a result they used paper straws. . . which cause far more damage as you have to destroy more land to create your lumber yards and which then produces far more carbon emissions.
In fact, we say how plastic bags are awful for the enviroment (an over statement. They are not good, they are definitley an eye sore when people don't throw them away and they do hurt sea turtles (do to the fact that they look like jelly fish which they eat and htey have spines in their throat that prevent them from spitting out the bags potentially causing intestinal blockages which obviously isn't a good thing and we need to be really careful with how we dispose of these things)), but multiple studies found that the most damaging bag to the planet in terms of over all footprint was actually cloth bags. They require farming which means chemicals and fossil fuels for tractors and transportation and processing, and so on and so forth. Meanwhile the most enviromentally friendly was the plastic bag because while it did not bio degrade, it took less energy to process and transport as it needs far fewer resources to make and land to make it, you can produce a lot more bags with fewer resources etc.
If you look at the biggest polluters in the world, they are second and third world nations or they are socialist/communist nations which have the most regulations and governmental control of all yet are the least enviromentally friendly.
So no, I don't think regulations will protect the enviroment, what happens is we see a problem and we call it out, then we start to fix it and as we begin to clean up the mess the government steps in, tells us to do what we are already doing (while screwing up our economy and stealing our money) then claims it was them who got the job done when it wasn't.
There's no question. In the 1960's before the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, the air in many cities was unhealthy, and the rivers and lakes were grossly polluted. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted it caught fire. Lake Washington, on the east side of Seattle, was so polluted with untreated sewage it was called Lake Stink-o. Now people swim in it.
You're confused.
A corporation is only such in law - and thus subject to law.
You only need lobbyists and journalists to get their act together to enact changes to reign in and change corporations.
Right now, people are too passive and there is no free press. Hence why the corporations are running riot worse than monarchies and aristocrats of old.
The next revolution needs to be in old print media dying and public politics becoming personal again.
100% agree. Many companies/corporations would only care about their monetary gains if not regulated to help sustain/maintain/develop the environment. The world would go to shit much faster if there was no regulating big companies/corporations.
Although there are some 'corporations' that try a positive approach, most of them don't give a shit about the upcoming generations.
Plus: careful! --- some who pretend to be 'good'... aren't.
I agree. A lot of corporate executives agree as well. Some form of regulation is essential and not all companies will comply voluntarily.
s I strongly agree. Big corporations are responsible for many environmental issues and they are not interested in finding solutions for them.
in UK the BATNEEC is used (best available technology not exceeding excessive cost) but so often CATNAP is applied (cheapest available technology narrowly avoiding prosecution),
If the CEO could make an extra hundred bucks by polluting a river they would.
Strongly agree. The only thing Corporations can be trusted to do is to try very hard to fuck over the rest of us.
Strongly agree. Corporations only care about money at whatever cause.
I agree but we've gone overboard and need less not more. But we do need some, a reasonable amount
Yes, strongly agree.
It’s a fact
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