I agree with Steve B. There are no good reasons why polluting pays. The
polluter pay principle has turned out to be true, time and time again. There
are at least three ways the polluter pays: regulatory, contingent liability
based on common law, and competitive markets. Polluters have control [albeit
limited over the first way, and very little over the last two ways. I dont
see any less regulation in the future but more importantly, Endocrine
Disruption, Groundwater Contamination, Climate Change, etc., are all more
recent reasons why there will be more regulations for the polluter. At the
end are some more comments on Total Cost Assessments. Indidividuals are
owners of organizations that pollute, and ultimately the share holder and
the voter will agree on the ethical treatment of polluters. That is they
will agree to cirmcumvent polluters by imprisonment, fines and orders to
comply. The Movie "fire down below" pointed out that only in america was it
possible to make $3.5 million and only pay $50,000. The case was disposal of
cyanide in an improper way and failure to disclose a mandatory Toxics
Release Inventory to Federal authorities. The problem is not that it the bad
stuff is there, but what happens when it leaves and gets into water, and
then the problem that only geologic time can solve. I the meantime for the
next 1-2 thousand years the fish and aquatic life are impacted.

At 09:05 AM 11/6/1998 -0800, you wrote:
>---Steven Bissell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Policy certainly can consider the big picture, but ethics has to look at
>individual actions. Just because we reduce total pollution does not mean
>that those who suffer from the impacts of specific sources of
>pollution are
>not ethically important. Same as with crime, the total crime rate in
>the US
>is down, but that does not mean that individual victims are
>unimportant. Is
>that analagous? I don't know or care, my point is the same; Ethically I
>don't think that pollution credits are all that good of an idea. While
>the
>big goal of pollution reduction may be met, some firms will be allowed
>to
>continue to pollute as long as they can afford to do so. Like most
>economic
>solutions to problems, it proposes a single solution to all
>situations. The
>role of ethics is to say that individual circumstances do count.
>----
>
>So some firms should be allowed to pollute?
>
>Actually, I think your reasoning is incorrect for the following
>reason. I don't think individuals really care what plant is doing the
>polluting. That is I don't think individuals care that they air is
>dirty because firm A or B is polluting, but that individuals care that
>the air is dirty and they want it reduced (I am assuming that the two
>firms produce the same pollution). The reason for this is that when
>they go outside they don't see which particles of pollution are
>produced by firm A and those that are produced by firm B. When they
>take a breath and cough they don't say "Goddamn that firm B. I wish
>someone would do something about firm B."
>
>Now when you have different types of pollution be pumped into the air
>then it makes very good sense to be concerned about the levels of the
>various pollutants and assuming (a very heroic assumption) that some
>sort of credit trading program were in place then you might want to
>have different amounts of credits for different pollutants. The
>reason for instituting such a system is to address the losses by the
>individuals so I think you claims that those who suffer the ill
>affects of pollution are being ignored is false.
>
>Also, a firm will continue to pollute only so long as the cost of
>retooling is greater than the cost of purchasing the credits to
>pollute. To coerce the firm to retool obviously imposes a greater
>loss on society than the trading scheme does.

There are many accounting measures that firms use to account for future
costs. One of the most common ones is total cost accounting. This method of
accounting is used by firms, along with activity based accounting, to
determine where there are production costs, any kind of output that has no
market value and is considered as "waste" is actually viewed as an economic
opportunity. This is based on the knowledge at the very basic engineering
level that all outputs have a cost in terms of capital and labour, and as
such are veiwed as a loss of revenue. Even dioxins can be veiwed as an
opportunity rather than as a waste product, not because any one would want
to buy a picogram of dioxin, but because it took energy and materials to
make the dioxin. The value of TCA is that all materials and activities are
evaluated in the production of each unit of good or service. The whole
concept of indirect costs and overhead is being thrown out by accounting now
since it hides the cost of polluting: future contingency costs. The air we
breath, the water we drink is the water and the air that "indicator
industries" like IBM, 3M, and other very specialized and strategically
important industries need too. No firm like IBM or AMD or Cyrix would even
think of locating a facility in places like Poland because the water is too
polluted. You can't use polluted water and air for microcircuitry. And the
fans on the computers soon clog up where the is coal dust and smoke. Most
water in the industrial areas of North America too are too polluted to
drink, so why would any one want to use this water in the pharmacuetical
industry or in food preparation? You can't unless you want to use expensive
filtration.

John


>
>Steve
>_________________________________________________________
>DO YOU YAHOO!?
>Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
>
>
>
        



%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%