Taking Action, Saving Lives - Part 3 (Practical Application)

I am not the biggest fan of complex theories but I do love putting what I learn into practice. This just happened today to me. My cell phone screen died on me. Because I have no way of finding my contacts or making any calls, I would have to get rid of the phone.

We've been talking about this all semester - about disposing of waste properly. The first thought that came to mind when I actually realized I had to throw my phone away was that I had to now put what I learnt in class to practice in real life. Sure, it was easier to just talk about stuff in class but it is a different thing to actually do what you learnt in class.

I suppose I would be recycling the phone through one of the companies listed on the BAN website but that would first involve contacting them about it because there are none in Des Moines. I was thinking about recycling my phone through the little plastic baggies that they have at all the dorms but thought twice about it because I have no idea where its going to go.

Another option would be to sell my old, broken phone on eBay for parts. But then again, it will not fetch much and the non-reusable parts would eventually be thrown away (reponsibly or not...) by the person who bought it from me.

So instead of doing the convenient thing, I will do the inconvenient but right thing which is to recycle it properly. It will only happen after finals are done because my current schedule will not allow it. The question that came to mind while all of this happened was that, are others just as willing to be inconvenienced in order to do the right thing?

I know I will not have a clear conscience if I just toss out the phone into the trash but the only reason as to why I feel this way is because I have learnt about it. What about people who have not learnt about this, or maybe have only vaguely heard about environmental injustice? What would those people then do? I shudder to think of the consequences.

I had a conversation last Tuesday with a friend who is a business major about environmental justice issues and in the beginning, he did not see anything wrong with the way "recycling" is done in developing countries. I even told him about Guiyu and he casually said that as long as they're willing to work for the money, why not? I quoted Jim Puckett from the Basel Action Network; people shouldn't have to choose between poverty or poison. He eventually acknowledged that there was a lot of ethics involved.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that a lot of the time, people get so caught up in the nitty gritty details that they fail to distinguish what is clearly wrong or right. It is an unfair decision to let a poor farmer choose between dying now of starvation or dying 20 years from now of cancer.

I know my small contribution to fighting the e-waste trade will not make much of a difference but I do know that if a lot of people feel the same way, things would definitely change. I liked SF's idea of not actually targeting the big problems first because you know it will not work for now. She suggests starting small, going local and for Des Moines, the best thing we can do to help the fight for environmental justice is to recruit a local recycling company who is willing to join the Basel Action Network (BAN) campaign for ethical recyclers.

Although we might not have curbed the production of electronics, we can at least ensure that none of it will end up in places like Guiyu.

Taking Action, Saving Lives (Part 2 - Inequality)

I find this book a lot more readable than the previous SF book but I guess this book is geared towards a different audience. SF talks mainly about science and the conflict of private interest science with public interest in the 3rd chapter of the book. I was in class on Monday and I thought I overheard someone say that she seems to be giving scientists a hard time. I agree somewhat with that but then again, she does give credit to those who actually do the right thing - like Warheim and Finkel (in Chapter 5). All of her arguments make sense; they really do. We should be moral citizens and uphold justice and equality etc etc. but unless a really dramatic chain of events occur, I don't think it is possible just because of the way the economy and society is set up at the moment.

I've always thought that Americans had a pretty good standard of living but finding out that it is much lower than 41 other developed countries is rather shocking. The horrible part about reading such a thing is that the information that SF produces to explain such a phenomenon is actually logical and makes a whole lot of sense. The US usually has so much clout in world affairs but then again, is this country fit to be in such a position?

I know this class is targeting environmental injustices but I think the biggest barrier to this issue is the way the US economy works. I am no business major but I think I can see how why things are the way they are in American society. Lets not talk about ethics and what not right now but focus on economics.

The US economy to me seems closer to the ideal "free-trade" economy compared to many other countries and this is probably the root of the problem. In an unregulated economy, corporations are geared to maximizing their profits with as little inputs (costs) as possible and the same goes for people who are part of this economy. Because there is fierce competition, people want to get more bang for their buck...making their money go a long way.

Inqualities like low pay (even with regulation) is market dynamics at work. Which company in a "free-market" economy would want to pay Worker A $10 an hour when Worker B is willing to work for $5 an hour? There is a constant demand for cheap labor not only in this country but in the world to cut down costs and maximize profits. Immigrant workers who earn much less if they work back home are willing to accept what is considered a low pay over here but is still much more than what they would earn back home.

This is why the rich keep getting richer and the gap between the rich and poor keeps increasing. To address this issue of economics, we cannot just foster change in the US but it has to be worldwide. If a US company is unable to meet their target spending over here because of high costs, they will most likely outsource their work to countries with cheap labor such as China. We worry about the environmental injustices that American workers face but what about the workers in the developing world?

We constantly want cheap goods to make the most of our money. Consumerism is probably the result of large scale advertising by corporations to purchase their products. The whole system is run by the amount of profits one makes. As a corporation, the more they sell, the more they earn. As consumers, the more we get for our money, the more satisfied we are. Logically, why would we want to change the way this system works because consumers and corporations technically benefit from such an arrangement.

Lets bring ethics into the picture now. According to SF and many other philosophers, we have a moral obligation to do the right thing. Especially since we are part of a demoncracy because the outcomes are due to the choices that we make. We owe it to other human beings to be treated as well as we are just because they're people too. I think everyone will agree with that but when it comes to how the economy and society is so intertwined, it it hard to put it into practice.

Private-interest science is no different; people get paid to do their job. People want to better their lives and they just so happen to be scientists but then, scientists have an ethical responsibility to report the truth. But they're people too, with wants that may not be fulfilled if they chose to report the truth. Could you really blame them for doing the wrong thing? I find it hard to point a finger because if I were put in such a position; with losing my job and being labelled a junk scientist, it would be tough to make a choice.

I think most people, if they really thought about it, do know what is going on. SF's book is a reminder as to why we should do the right thing. We all know what the right thing is but the main issue I feel, is to take a step into doing the right thing. Are we willing to sacrifice our money, time and standard of living to ensure that justice is being practiced everywhere?