Pepsi did WHAT????

I read an article yesterday about Pepsi's efforts to be more environmentally responsible…but this article didn't give Pepsi a pat on the back for social responsibility. This article was deriding Pepsi for investing in risky activities that might not be profitable for its shareholders. Citing the Free Enterprise Action Fund, the article emphasized that businesses should live by the sole principle of generating profits for their shareholders. Indeed, that idea makes sense – I was taught that the purpose of business is to generate profits and that they should all have competitors so that each business must compete to make the most money and the cheapest product. This free market "game" is supposed to ensure that the most efficient processes prevail and consumers get to choose the cheapest products.

But there is a slight problem with this model. In an effort to drive down prices and make big profits for CEOs and shareholders, most business practices are destroying the environment, depleting resources, and not paying suppliers and/or workers fair wages. When we created this "game" we call the free market, we forgot to include checks and balances that protect the common good and future generations.

Currently, we rely on the government to provide the checks and balances that protect the common good – in the U.S., the EPA is supposed to regulate pollution etc, the FDA is supposed to make sure products don't harm our health, and we rely on laws (and unions) to protect workers' rights. But relative to the size and scale of companies, especially large corporations, these checks and balances are tiny, and the organizations protecting the common good are underfunded and understaffed. Further, the government organizations that are supposed to be working for the good of the people rely on lobbying groups (often funded by large corporations) to inform them about issues that might harm the common good.

Some businesses have introduced the concept of the "triple bottom line" so that their companies strive not only for maximum profits but for social and environmental "profits" also. However, until shareholders, governments, consumers, and the international community are all on board, these companies will struggle to compete with those who strive to increase profits at all costs.

Do you think corporations should play a greater role in promoting social justice and environmental protection? Do you think the government should play a greater role? What role can consumers play and how can we educate ourselves?

The solution to climate change: culture change

The past week has been incredibly exciting and full of emotion. Beginning last Wednesday, the National Council on Science and the Environment (NCSE) brought together scientists, government officials, politicians, and the general public to discuss Climate Change: Science and Solutions. Many of us at the conference experienced strong emotions of anxiety, and even despair as we saw that the negative impacts of our carbon emissions and deforestation clearly overshadow the solutions to climate change (or "climate disruption", as John Holdren accurately described it).

It's not that we don't have solutions, it's that they require societal and cultural change on a massive scale. Sure, many changes such as improving energy efficiency are win-win actions, or "low hanging fruit". But to minimize the negative effects of climate disruption, we really need to create drastic changes to the way we produce food, manage forests, travel, and use energy.

Up until now, we have not had to pay for the pollution we emit and the natural resources we destroy - so we have been paying artificially low prices for all the wood, paper, water, and gas we use. But since we haven't been paying the REAL costs, we have been building up debt, and now we are in the hole (much like the U.S.'s national debt.)

But the depressing story of our ecological debt is not the full story. Monday was Martin Luther King Day - a day to honor and recognize the power and success of the social justice movement and all those who dedicate their lives to create positive change. MLK and the civil rights movement have made incredible progress by inspiring America to stand up for justice. The movement gave power to a beautiful component to American culture: that of tolerance, appreciation of diversity, and love of justice. It is on these same principles, and with a similar momentum, that we can transform our culture away from blind consumerism and toward socially and environmentally responsible lifestyles.

Start now by transforming your personal, political, and business life. Adopt a new habit every month, take a day to meet with your local, state, and or US representative to tell them what they need to be doing for you (ie. improving mass transit, taxing/regulating coal to subsidize clean energy, protecting forests, the environment, and American jobs through fair trade regulations.) And finally, take a lead at work by making sure your office and/or business has good practices - from recycling and being energy efficient to collaborating with other businesses on how to be environmentally and socially responsible in your field.
Let's create a happy ending to this story.

What are the most impactful actions you can take this year?

Is It Possible for Social Justice to Promote Social Inequality?

The United Nations today released its annual Human Development Report, warning that climate change will affect poorer countries far more adversely than it will affect affluent countries. The report also pushes those latter countries to aid the former countries in their eco-friendly development, citing the fact that it is primarily the affluent countries who are responsible for the enhanced global warming enigma.

The HDR devotes significant space to the issue of social justice. Featured in the report's summary is Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, who argues that climate change is just as much a moral issue as it is a scientific one. He warns of "adaptation apartheid", a loaded term designed to goad people into an emotional response, presumably against those countries who, by virtue of their massive greenhouse emissions, are responsible for this de facto segregation of prosperity.

Having witnessed Tutu speak in person, I can vouch for his words' power, and his prominent positioning in the HDR proves his international recognition and appeal. But by aligning itself with Tutu in this way, the UN is (intentionally or not) endorsing his views as congruent with its own. This takes the UN out of its non-partisan box and thrusts it into the more ambiguous realm of social politics. This is not to say that the UN shouldn't tackle social issues. Clearly, that's part of its mission. But Tutu's ambitions are a bit presumptive and potentially dangerous.

To bastardize the HDR's and Tutu's assertions for the sake of space and argument, it boils down to this: rich, developed countries have, by virtue of their enormous growth, contributed the vast majority of greenhouse emissions to our atmosphere, and thus must take the equal amount of responsibility to deal with those emissions' consequences. Is it fair to ask a poor Egyptian to learn to tread water while letting a wealthy Dutchman build a floating house instead? Both are means of coping with a flood, but the inequity is painfully clear.

There are two conclusions that the HDR spins off from this situation. The first is to maintain that the responsible countries must decrease their emissions not just for their own sake, but for the poor Egyptian's as well. After all, they have the wealth to do so. I agree. Large change of any kind, especially climate change, can only occur if it has the support of large institutions. Yes, an avalanche can be started by tiny pellets of snow, but to have a full-on mountain-slide you need some big blocks to break off and come along for the ride as well. What I'm wont to dispute, however, is the second conclusion: that it's those same countries' responsibility to pay for not only the Egyptian's swimming lessons, but to pay for his lifestyle change as well; that is, to help so that he can possibly afford his own floating house. Tutu would call this social justice.

Let me be clear, I am no scrooge. Some type of redistribution of wealth is vital in any society and situation. Without charity, the world would be a sad, sad place. But charity and moral obligation are two different philosophical and pragmatical ideas. If I pass a homeless man on the street, must I give him change? If I can afford it, sure, I would. But there is no law, no civic dictum that says I must. To put this more in perspective, say I passed a group of twenty homeless men with but a spare dollar bill in my pocket. Should I give it to one of the men, possibly securing his next meal? What then of the other nineteen? They have as much need as the man I helped. And also, what situation and danger in which I am placing this man? Now he has food, and the others don't. Desperation leads to violence - could I have potentially caused this man harm?

The above situation is much too simple to apply to our world problems of monetary inequity, but it still holds some good questions that we should be asking. And it also brings up an important but depressing truism of our world: for some to survive, some must perish. Put another way, our world depends on having a spread of wealth, and that means that some will draw the short lot. No climate scientist or social scholar would argue that every man and woman should be as wealthy as an American, certainly not at current world population levels above 6 billion. Lord knows we have plenty of those running around as it is. More would just completely destroy our planet through intense resource usage. But what some scientists and scholars argue is that we should all perhaps learn to live as 3/4 of an American -- not on a racial level, but an economic one. This would free up some extra money for those who need it most, reducing the chasm between rich and poor but still maintaining the vital division of labor and resources.

This is a view I respect, and at least in theory, support. After all, as someone in my twenties, I'm the one who's going to have to deal with the climate problems of the future. But I must play Devil's Advocate with Tutu again. I believe that I, having worked hard for my wealth, I own a certain right to use it as I choose. I have always planned on giving a portion of my excess wealth to charitable causes. But be in not for anyone else to dictate this to me. Yes, the poor Egyptian didn't ask to be born to a poor family in a floodplain, but I didn't ask him to be born there either.

My goal would be to give him enough to sustain a comfort level relative to his own, not to mine. It would do him no good to buy him a floating house when the rest of his village lives in squalor. But to teach his village to irrigate more efficiently, thus increasing his farm's output and increasing the village's wealth, this would have a greater moral affect.

Developed nations are no doubt responsible for the current climate conundrum. But we must first fix our own house, and that is a challenge in and of itself. Are not the survival of some better than the survival of none? It's a reality that we don't often like to confront, because it isn't often socially and politically acceptable. One can very easily spin moral yarns about social justice, but they'll never amount to anything without an underlying thread of pragmatism.

If we can all live with a little less, we can all have a little more. If only the HDR's advocation were so subtle.