Argumentum between Capitalists and Free Market Environmentalists - Essay Example

Argumentum between Capitalists and Free Market Environmentalists Introduction Environmental conservation is a complex process aspired by different views and practices from religious perspectives to social, economic and political prospects. As a result, the topic of environmental conservation has turned out to be a controversial argument between various conservatives. This document explores the argument between capitalist society environmentalist and the free market environmentalists in regard to their views and concepts of environmental conservation practices. The global environment faces degradation from economic, human and social activities. This factor makes larger capitalist mainstream society. Economic systems are implemented to profit governments as well as private investors at the expense of the environment. In this case, people tend to focus on technology as a stepping stone towards centralization of economic system while neglecting its impacts to the environment. As a result, technology carries much blame for the degradation of the environment. The pressure of globalization on developing and third-world countries is compromising the attitudes, activities and policies for environmentalism. Global warming, food insecurity, water shortages, energy reductions are some of the effects of environmental impacts to over seven billion people in the world. Various government bodies in the world have strived to ensure there is implementation of environmental sustainability, however, the policies generated towards this initiative are implemented to favour private production and ownership. Environmentalists with differentiated ideologies and opinion have voiced their concerns on the adopted policies which are aimed at reducing environmental degradation. The premise statement of this argument is that environmentalist pose great threat tension between the strategies of ecological survival and capitalist ethics of materialism on individual welfare. This aspect contributes to the failure of environmental protection and conservation policies. Side A Lester Brown, Gwynne Dyer and J. F Rischard are renowned environmentalists whose efforts in the advocacy for environmental conservation practices constantly face parallelism to human civilization. In his book, High Noon: “High Noon: 20 Global Problem, 20 Years to Solve Them” Jean-Francois describes the current capital society as a form of global community with unprecedented opportunities that are joint with unparalleled stresses from two major sources which are demographic explosion and modern world economy. The second source corresponds to technology and economic revolution (Jean-Francois 1). Brown focuses on a wide view of environmental factors such as global warming in various parts of the world citing out the responses from government bodies with the aim of reducing the ecological deficit. However, he cites out that all nations are entitled to internal economic as well as financial systems that reverse its own environmental gradation trends. Dyer concentrates on the implications of natural as well as environmental resources abuse and how it impacts from human and global politics. However, the address of Brown, jean-Francois and Dyer are conflicting with other environmentalists such as James Gustave who assert on the practicality of all proposed environmental strategies and the adoption of necessitated policies for ecological sustainability in the predominant capitalistic system (James 5). The naivety of Brown, Dyer and Rischard are based on the capitalist frameworks that conceptualize proposals for any crises that impends economic science. These proposals are distinctive in implementation to ensure societal reproduction of economic resources. Environmental crises are structural problems in a capitalist society that affect the mode of production though co modification (Raj 13). Capitalists perceive that anything in the environment can be humanly owned. Humans are expected to show sovereignty over the environment to ensure constant availability and supply of subservient human needs. However, this notion is completely incoherent according to Brown who asserts that human beings are completely dependent on the environment and not vice versa. The advent of human civilization led to excessive reliance on the environment for economic expansion, and the current scope of global civilization has instead led to natural resources’ degradation (Brown 6). Capitalist proposals in creating a green world are embedded in establishing an asymmetrical power relationship between human beings and the environment, whereby human have more power over the environment. This is maintained to promote human economic victories over nature. However, in 20 years’ time Dyer asserts that nature will have reverted the disrespect of humans to nature to human punishments, and hence paralysis of the capitalist society. Global temperatures will have risen 2.8°C higher than they were thirty years ago (Dyer 9). Several initiative proposals of capitalism is the ‘green ‘initiatives of Private Companies. This proposal is established under the capitalist paradigm that dictates the relationship of humans, the environment and co modification. It converges political action and consumption as determined by economic science. Side B Environmentalists in the free market have a different response to environmental degradation. For instance, James Gustav represents the free market environmentalists who propose for a steady economy which will run by ecological economies. In his argument, nature may not be restored back to its virgin state. Gustav opposes the capitalist way of thinking perpetuating that capitalism should not hinder the human anticipation to achieve economic and social equity over in the expense of environmental equity (James, 17). In his reasoning, the growing population all over the world needs a place to stay and technological advancement such as urbanization prospects require raw materials to build. Gustav proposes that the best way to conserve the environment is to view it as a materialistic and consumerism a concept that makes it property of the government thus can be used for the benefit of development. In this way, it cannot be exploited and thus also serves as a more practical approach compared to the capitalist way towards conservation practices (James, 32). This approach ensures a positive interaction between the environment and the ever growing population all around the world. According to free market environmentalists, this approach will enhance development as well as encourage nature sympathy. Compromise Analysis Human civilization is an evolutionary process that has grown over thousands of years and thus is susceptible to change. Free market environmentalist proposed a controlled change while their capitalist counterparts propose human restriction from exploiting the environment. Capitalist differ with free market environmentalist in the notion that environmental degradation is a man made crisis and thus for it to be solved, man has to be restricted from interacting with the environment. Capitalist advocate for human owned environment while free market environmentalist proposes a government owned system to manage all ownership affairs of the environment. Capitalist think that private ownership of the environment will help solve the human civilization process that degrade the environment as the ecosystem will be managed by private investors who would not incur losses as a result of poor management of the environment. On the other hand, free market environmentalists act as free thinkers who perpetuate that the environment cannot be re-built to its original state due to inevitable human activities but can in turn be control through proper governance by established bodies rather than single owners. Common ground Capitalists and free market environmentalist both agree that environmental degradation is a manmade crisis which needs to be solved by establishing rules and programs that will hinder the destruction of the environment through direct interaction by man. In this case, the only way to foster environmental conservation is through intervention approaches. In order to protect the environment, human beings ought to draft policies that counter the direct contact of the environment with the notion of exploitation. Structuring an ecological economy by government can act as an essential policy for the conservation of the environment. This is due to the practicality of the free market environmentalist mode of thinking. The current world is still evolving in technology and population thus space is needed to accommodate these changes. The collective demands of the capitalist society have surpassed environmental resource regeneration ability. The current environment state places the capitalist society in the verge of a decline from economic fall due to global decline of natural resources. Free market environmentalists mode of thought can be adopted in the aim of fostering change in environmental conservation as it uses realism to analyze and find changes in the relationship between man and the environment. The environment is resilient and fragile but also flexible to adaptations and change if the correct approach is implemented. Human beings will be forced to change the realism of their relationship with the environment. Even without consideration on the nature of the environment, it all comes down to how mankind wants to survive on earth; hence the mandatory course of re-defining environmental conservation. Human beings are not yet ready to manage the environment individually. In this case, the concept of owning the environment by humans as proposed by the capitalist environmentalist may pose great threat to the ecosystem. The free market environmentalist proposes for governmental ownership of the environment. This is gives organization environmental agencies a chance to monitor environmental processes through devising programs that can be used to counter negative human activities to the environment. For instance, the US government designed the Environmental Welfare Act as a policy act to protect environmental management and interaction in the year 1966. Since then, the act has prevented unethical interaction practices between human beings and the environment. Conclusion Environmental conservation is a broad inter disciplinary with various concepts and theories that defines the course. The capitalist and free market environmentalists depict unparallel modes of environmental conservation practices (Lester, 47). The two concepts contradict as each has its own perception about environmental conservation. Lester Brown, Gwynne Dyer and J. F Rischard perceive that the environment can be humanly owned thus the environment needs man more than he needs it. The capitalism concept entails the use of private practices to conserve the environment. James Gustav a free market environmentalist argue that the environment can be well managed by the government and universal organizations such as the UN who have the role of creating policies for environmental conservation. Irrespective of the disparities in the notions and mechanisms of conserving and improving the environment from its current state, all stakeholders, the citizens, environmental stakeholders, governments and Green Movements ought to avert the present failures of environment conservation policies to ensure positive posterity impacts. Environmental conservation is a universal responsibility shared among all nations in the world. Environmental crisis is a global experience shared by nations as an after effect of poor conservation practices. Capitalism concept of conservation can be cited as the core cause of environmental crisis in third world nation. In these nations, the rich have much power than the poor thus control a large percentage of the economy as well as making policies that govern various operations in these countries. This aspect portray the concept of capitalism which suppress the power of the weak in the society thus causing negative impact to the environment with the aim of profiting and building the economy. Work Cited Gwynne, Dyer. Climate wars. The Fight for Survival as the World Overheats. Chicago: Scribe Publications. 2010. Print James, Gustav S. A New American Environmentalism and the New Economy. National Council for Science and the Environment Washington, D.C.Speech, pp 1-26. 2010. Print Jean-Francois, Rischard. High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them. New York: Basic Books. 2007. Print Lester, Brown. World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse. New York: Routledge.2012. Print Read More