On Roses Liberty, Property, Environmentalism - Essay Example

On Rose’s “Liberty, Property, Environmentalism.” Some believe that the only way to adequately manage the environment is to make it private property. The property-rights based approach is offered as a solution to the problem of abusing environmental resources. Rose claims that “property-rights approaches are important and feasible, but that there are many pitfalls that will need to be avoided” (p. 421, in Schmidtz and Willott, 2012). What are the pitfalls she is talking about? Present and explain them. Do you agree with Rose? Why or why not? Explain your answers using examples illustrating and demonstrating your point. According to Rose, property regimes may have significant pitfalls and these include the following: parties involved in the agreement may not necessarily come up with conformity, they may be ineffective, they may be aimed at certain objective not consistent with protecting the environment, property rights may not apply for environmental resources, and they may only produce monoculture instead of diverse environments (Rose 1-25). In property regimes, parties involved may not come up with conformity is a possibility. In the first place, it is a tough activity to manage the environment. It is hard to manage it because it is vast and unlike a single property or so, it is tough to control or maintain it due to its area of coverage (Rose 1). On the other hand, the environment is largely considered under the property domain of the public. This means that everybody could significantly own any possible integral component of an environment. In the case of Scarborough shoal, the heated debate between the Philippines and China continues to create significant tension as these two countries could not actually come up with an agreement as to which the territorial responsibility on this rich-oil area should fall. Due to significant benefits that this land could provide, it would ignite significant intentions which make it hard for the two countries to actually come up with an agreement. A rich-filled oil area is considered to be an asset of a country as processed oil has become lifeblood of the modern economy. Thus, economically and politically speaking, it would be a great opportunity for either China or Philippines to take hold of the said parcel of land or territory. Another pitfall of property regimes is their being ineffective. For instance, if prevailing law concerning area of territorial responsibility between nations is effective, then China and the Philippines would not have become too narrow-minded on the issue about Scarborough shoal. In the first place, it would have been easy for these two countries to resolve the issue. However, due to the point that there could be significant amount of politics that is not impossible to take place, ineffectiveness of property regimes could be expected because of the prevailing political, social or economic concerns associated with this issue. The level of inefficiency may be due to significant intentions of the people behind the property regimes. It is easy for everyone to justify individual points and even to argue their rights and privileges in every property under any public domain. Thus, complexity of the issue can always be expected. Another significant pitfall of property regimes is that they may be able to come up with certain objective not consistent with protecting the environment or its resources. As stated earlier, there are some various human concerns such as social, economic and politics that can be associated with property regimes. Knowing the fact that these concerns could substantially lead to personal matters such as in the case of China and Philippines, property regimes could therefore be used for any sort of justification just to be able to address personal gain. Furthermore, since the environment is substantially used as a very important resource that could be maximized for either of social, economic and political gain, then it is not impossible to come up with property regimes that will always look forward to address these human concerns. For instance, global warming issue is related with protecting the environment. However, sustainability issue which is clearly an integral component of protecting the environment will always look forward to related information prior to the development of relevant policies or procedures or property regimes. Concerning this, Al Gore pointed out that human activities substantially degrade the environment so highly industrialized countries need to refrain from over production or emission of harmful gas to the atmosphere. However, another research stand against the point of Al Gore telling the public and the rest of global warming alarmists that what is happening at present with the environment is due to natural process of nature which had long before taking its part on earth. Another important issue concerns about biotechnology and big corporations especially with coming up with genetically modified food. Some use the point that in order to reduce use of harmful chemicals for pest control, modifying the genetic makeup of agricultural crops would be the best option. Although this has a point, some would claim that the world should have no longer experienced shortage of food supply. So some would claim that only the powerful few and profit-hunger corporations benefit from this breakthrough technology. It is therefore clear that one could not separate significant political or economic issues associated with implementing property regimes particularly in the case of environment protection and sustainability issues. There is always a possibility that the entire intention may not be actually for protecting the environment itself or its related resources, which could substantially agree with Rose’s point. This connects to the next idea that property rights may not eventually apply for environmental resources. For example, Monsanto has property right over its genetically modified crops. However, based on EPA’s ruling, such right cannot eventually apply when some pollen of these crops went off the neighboring farms resulting to genetic pollution. As a result, neighboring farms may eventually possess new crops patented by Monsanto. It is not actually a form of thief because there is an involvement of natural process. It is the nature itself who would have initiated the actual situation. This is just a specific case of property rights that could possibly not apply for environmental resources. Finally, another pitfall of property regimes is the production of monoculture instead of diverse environments. For example, big plantations due to maximizing profit potential choose to plant single crop for a wide space or area of parcel of land. Due to property regime, a certain corporation or property owner could maximize this opportunity. However, the resulting impact of this results to producing monoculture environment instead of a highly diverse one. I certainly agree with Rose. The reason is that humans have the ability to maximize whatever it is that is at hand. Due to certain rights and privileges, humans always have the opportunity to maximize potential benefits even if it would mean threat to environmental sustainability or unfairness and inequality. For me, pitfalls therefore about property regimes should be avoided. Reference Rose, Carol M. Liberty, Property, Environmentalism. Social Philosophy & Policy 26.1 (2009): 1-25. Web. Read More