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#21
11-02-2006, 05:05 PM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Was
Considering I am an Environmental Engineer interested in the legal system, I suppose its about time I weighed in here.
The idea that lawsuits can effectively control pollution in an AC society is silly. First off, it is extremely difficult to sort out which polluter damaged which person. To take a simple example on a case I worked on, a groundwater contaminant plume affected the water supply for a subdivision. In this case, there were 5 or six potential sources for the contaminant and about a hundred homeowners. This was a huge legal nightmare. The case has been running for about 20 years and there is no end in sight. And this was a simple problem. To tackle the much more complicated tasks of surface water or air pollution, you are talking about thousands of polluters and millions of affected persons. In order to successfully prosecute a lawsuit, each of those persons would need to figure out how much damage each of those polluters inflicted on them and then spend thousands of dollars on lawyers. They would be spending this money to collect a few dollars from each polluter. Imagine a lung cancer patient trying to sue each automobile owner and coal plant operator for their cancer. It would never work, especially since the patient would have a hell of a time proving that the air pollution even caused the cancer. And I am completely skipping the "AC courts suck" argument. Also, I would point out that the lawsuit option is available under the State. The state has passed various environmental regulations that people can sue under. These statutes often set up systems whereby the process for proving a case is simplified to the point that a person actually has a chance to win and collect enough money to make pursuing the case worthwhile. These provisions would not be in place under AC. If you choose to ignore these statutes because you reject the state, common law nuisance and trespass claims can also be filed against polluters. My point here is that even with these options available, the amount of cleanup that happens as a result of lawsuits is relatively small. Most efforts for environmental cleanup are brought on by regulation. I would also add that not all environmental costs cause any damage to anyone. Wildlife protection is also a valuable goal. Who is going to sue to protect Spotted Owls, especially if a defendant can prove that the extinction of the owls on a plaintiffs property cost the Plainiff very little money. I really think that AC claims of environmental protection are the weakest part of AC theory. They would be better off saying "[censored] the environment". I also echo what others have said about businesses being quick to externalize costs by polluting and thinking short term. [ QUOTE ] short termism in business is often if not always due to the state. [/ QUOTE ] I think that this is incorrect as well. My understanding as to why businesses are focused on short term profits is because stockholders demand them and executives get canned if the stock price falls. I'm interested if anyone can come up with a theory why either the state creates this demand or if my assumption is incorrect. 
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#22
11-02-2006, 05:09 PM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Was
[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, but AC land fails miserably in this arena. [/ QUOTE ] Compared to who? The most disgusting projects i worked on were government run. old job Under completed projects look at the Paducha gaseus diffusion plant (8th down). Before we did a pilot project they had to find an area that was clean enough for us to go into. At least 10 of the 21 projects listed on that page were government run sites. If you were to go into the numbers you would find that those sites consisted of at least 80% of the total amount of product that was to be removed.
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#23
11-02-2006, 05:14 PM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Waste
Im going to have to be agaisnt ACists here , I dont buy the AC argument that the market will take care of the enviroment.
Analogy to expain my point: I like chess, I get elected as a president, I spend 1000 million dollars of the national budget on chess. Are you telling me that the market can provide better chess than the one I can provide as the state? I call BS, in this case the chess provided from the goverment is much better than the one provided by the market. Why? Because Im highly overrating what ppl really want spent on chess.( just like some goverments highly overrate what ppl want spent on the enviroment.) Its unfair to blame the goverment for the enviroment if you care so much about the enviroment there is a green party you can vote for. A green party will clearly protect the enviroment better than ACland. ( Just like if a have a Chess party, my party will clearly be better for chess than AC) The truth is that the ppl dont really care about the enviroment, the ACists case has to be that ppl prefer an XBox instead of reducing global warming, and what is good is subjective.
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#24
11-02-2006, 05:18 PM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Was
[ QUOTE ]
I agree but my point is that companies don't always act in their best interest. [/ QUOTE ] No one does, neither in the market nor in the state. We're all human. [ QUOTE ] It took an insane amount of federal money just to prove the CO2 was pollution. I find it very difficult to believe AC land would have gotten us this far. Seriously, would AC land have funded climate research? I can't see how that is possible. [/ QUOTE ] I have absolutely no idea what would have happened if the last 200 years took place under ACism. On one hand, non-profit science cannot be involuntarily funded under ACism, but on the other hand it's ridiculous to believe that humans are not going to seek out newer and better explanations of the world we live in absent a government monopoly. ACism would reflect completely different values and incentives. I have no idea what would have happened. Air pollution presents a very unique problem that I think may be the only of its kind: an externality that is genuinely globalized. Each time you burn gas you aggress against everyone on the planet, just to a tiny degree. The transaction costs of restitution are huge compared to the payoff, and we're stuck with a socialized climate. We simply don't yet have the technology to practically privatize the air and the ozone layer so that these externalities can be redirected privately. I'd say that it's of paramount importance to ACism that we start using a non-pollutant, cheap renewable fuel source, but it's important to everything that we do that. Our current system doesn't seem to be doing very well with it. [ QUOTE ] Then again good luck going up against an entity with unlimited funds in court. There is a reason why the fed government refunds your legal fees if you win in court in a case vs the feds. [/ QUOTE ] I'm pretty sure all the private court advocates demand that your fees be refunded by the guilty party.
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#25
11-02-2006, 09:44 PM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Was
[ QUOTE ]
short termism in business is often if not always due to the stock market [/ QUOTE ] Seriously, your arguments are laughable.
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#26
11-02-2006, 09:57 PM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Was
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] short termism in business is often if not always due to the stock market [/ QUOTE ] Seriously, your arguments are laughable. [/ QUOTE ] Well argued.
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#27
11-02-2006, 10:07 PM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Was
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] short termism in business is often if not always due to the stock market [/ QUOTE ] Seriously, your arguments are laughable. [/ QUOTE ] Well argued. [/ QUOTE ] It was his foolish argument in the first place. He gave no evidence for it, I was explaining how he was wrong. If you require further elaboration, it's quite simple. CEOs pay is often tied into to how well the stock performs (I'm sure this is the government's fault). CEOs want money (I'm sure this is the government's fault). CEOs will thus often make business decisions that result in short term growth, including cooking the books, so as to look better in the short term and make more money (I'm sure this is the government's fault).
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#28
11-02-2006, 11:26 PM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Was
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] short termism in business is often if not always due to the stock market [/ QUOTE ] Seriously, your arguments are laughable. [/ QUOTE ] Well argued. [/ QUOTE ] It was his foolish argument in the first place. He gave no evidence for it, I was explaining how he was wrong. If you require further elaboration, it's quite simple. CEOs pay is often tied into to how well the stock performs (I'm sure this is the government's fault). CEOs want money (I'm sure this is the government's fault). CEOs will thus often make business decisions that result in short term growth, including cooking the books, so as to look better in the short term and make more money (I'm sure this is the government's fault). [/ QUOTE ] The Private Equity Boom [ QUOTE ] "Going private is very top-of-mind with corporate directors these days," said Danos, who's on the board of General Mills. The private-equity guys, says Danos, like to argue that if one company in an industry goes private, it gains advantages, and others in the industry may feel compelled to follow suit. What kind of advantages? Well, not just relief from some regulatory burdens, according to both Capellas and Danos, but more important, freedom from the relentless quarterly-earnings grind. "In a private company you can focus on what really matters," says Capellas. "Customers and products are the focus, not administration." [/ QUOTE ]
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#30
11-03-2006, 12:57 AM
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Re: Why it is in a Company\'s Best Interest to Reduce Environmental Was
The "stock market" as we know it is a *regulated* environment. The regulations (SOX, etc) are a major factor in driving the behavior you are complaining about; many are figuring this out and realize they can make more money long-term by going private, avoiding the *regulatory burden* (imposed by the state), and focusing on *running the business* instead of jumping through hoops.
So what WAS your point, exactly?
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