Business & Environmental Ethics

New ideas for addressing climate change

July 27, 2012
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Bill McKibben, one of the leading environmentalists of our time. has a real talent for taking the latest developments in climate science and explaining their significance in terms that the average person can easily understand. His latest piece in Rolling Stone magazineis no exception. In it, he gives compelling, fact-based reasons for why the prospects for containing global warming are very dim. But he also presents a new idea that just might provide a glimmering of hope. McKibben suggests that the divestment campaign that helped to end the South African apartheid may provide the model for a public campaign to…

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Taxing the wealthy (TED lecture by Chuck Collins)

June 30, 2012
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The Program on Inequality and the Common Good, run by Chuck Collins at The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, focuses on the dangers that growing inequality pose for U.S. democracy, economic health and civic life. In this TEDx lecture Collins gives a moving and illuminating talk on the moral justification for reducing income inequality by increasing taxes on the rich. Collins’s privileged background lends to his credibility on this subject, but what really impresses in this talk are the stories of the wealthy people across the US who are actually willing to dramatically increase their tax rates. This talk…

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Stiglitz on economic inequality

June 30, 2012
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The issue of economic inequality has been receiving quite a lot of attention in the past few months–at least in the progressive media. This is no doubt due in part to the Occupy movement and to the anti-austerity protests in Europe, which have really thrust the issues of inequality and economic justice into the spotlight. More so than at any point in the last several decades, there is a real public thirst for understanding the causes and consequences of economic inequality and what can be done to reverse it. The Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is one of several academics who have…

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The sad state of affairs in Texas

June 29, 2012
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The 2012 political platform of the Republican Party of Texas is available online here. The views expressed  in this document are both disturbing and depressing. Below are a few highlights.  1. On Education Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.    Knowledge-Based Education –…

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Alternatives to capitalism?

June 28, 2012
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In this brief article first published in the Guardian, Richard Wolff, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts and New School University, discusses the amazing success of the Mondragon Corporation of Spain and its potential as a model of social organization in a post-capitalistic economy. Key differences between businesses working within the MC framework and typical corporations are (1) the democratic nature of the decision-making process within the organization and (2) the limits on income inequality between workers. Imagine all businesses in a country working within the MC framework and you have a realistic and intriguing alternative to capitalism. Here…

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Children speak out on the climate crisis

June 28, 2012
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Twenty years ago a 12-year-old girl named Severn Suzuki addressed delegates in Rio de Janeiro during the summit’s plenary session on behalf of the world youth. In the following segment DemocracyNow! revisits that passionate, prescient, and powerful and speech that “silenced the world for 6 minutes”.  Some quotes from the speech: Coming up here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future. Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come. I am here to speak on behalf of…

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Recent thoughts on the climate crisis

June 27, 2012
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A small sample of some the important things that have been said recently on the state of the climate crisis and the failures of political leaders to address the root causes or even acknowledge the seriousness of the problem: 1. Democracy Now interview with Bill McKibben (environmentalist, author, founder of the remarkable grassroots climate campaign 350.org) 2. Approaching a state shift in the Earth’s biosphere (ground-breaking article in Nature written by over 20 environmental scientists) 3. Is humanity pushing Earth past a tipping point? (a simplified, less technical summary of the aforementioned article in Wired magazine) 4. Democracy Now interview…

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The corrupting influence of money in politics

June 19, 2012
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While it’s no secret that concentrated wealth negatively influences the political system, most people are probably unaware of the extent and the details of the corruption. One good source of information on this subject is the American writer Thomas Frank, who recently published an interesting article in Harper’s, appropriately titled “It’s a Rich Man’s World: How Billionaires Pick America’s Candidates.” Here he is, on the same topic, in interview with Bill Moyers. 

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Julian Assange interviews Rafael Correa (The World Tomorrow)

June 3, 2012
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In the sixth episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador discusses the media, government corruption, and his country’s relationship with the United States. The interview opens with the circumstances surrounding the attempted coup in Ecuador in 2010, during which the president was taken hostage. Following the attempted coup, Correa embarked on a furious and controversial counter-offensive against Ecuador’s media. In this interview he explains the media’s role in the events of 2010 in terms of the vested interests of media corporations. He claims that corporate owners of the media “disguised as journalists, are trying to do politics,…

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Dean Ornish and enlightened ethical egoism

May 28, 2012
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Ethical egoism is the philosophical theory that people should always act in their own self-interest, that when faced with choices between what’s good for oneself and what’s good for others, one should always place one’s own interests first. One of the chief exponents of this view was Ayn Rand, who influenced a generation of powerful people, including Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, each of whom helped to push forward the neoliberalist agenda that has dominated social and political life since the 1980s. At the heart of neoliberalist philosophy is the idea that greed is good, not just…

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Catastroika: privatization goes public (documentary)

May 27, 2012
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With its on-going “debt crisis” Greece has emerged as a target for economic “solutions testing.” So far austerity and large-scale privatization seem to be the favored  treatment, as prescribed by the putative economic experts–the IMF and the EU banking sector.  In June 2011 Democracy Now hosted a debate with Hara Kouki and Costas Panayotakis, discussing the imposed economic measurements that triggered widespread protest throughout Greece and led to ridiculous new levels of privatization, such as the Greek police force renting out their officers and helicopters to private individuals. And a related documentary, “Catastroika: privatization goes public,” was recently released, analyzing the transfer…

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Business with a conscience

May 19, 2012
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Every corporation, now matter how socially or environmentally destructive, presents itself as doing something good for consumers, for communities, for the species, or even the planet. Monsanto, for instance, claims to be all about “improving lives” (though notice they don’t say whose lives) and about “meeting the needs of today while preserving the planet for tomorrow.” This overt corporate public relations bullshit (I know that you know that I don’t believe this but I’m going to pretend I do because that’s how I make a lot of money) has led to such profound cynicism that reasonable people have to wonder…

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More on economic inequality and the Occupy Movement

May 18, 2012
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Among mainstream or major media organizations Al Jazeera deserves credit for its attention to the issue of economic inequality. One recent opinion piece by Noam Chomsky (Plutonomy and the precariat: On the history of the US economy in decline) provides a concise overview of the causes of the growing economic inequality in the US and the disastrous consequences it is bringing about. (For more on how inequality is at the root most social evils, see this powerful lecture by Richard Wilkinson). Additionally, Chomsky’s article helps to explain just why the Occupy Movement  is so important, really one of the most…

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How economic inequality harms societies (TED lecture by Richard Wilkinson)

May 17, 2012
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The following is a brilliant, evidence-based lecture on the devastating consequences of socio-economic inequality. The speaker is Richard Wilkinson, an epidemiologist and leading figure in the field of inequality research. The lecture presents a very compelling case for the idea that the level of socio-economic inequality in a society is the key criterion for determining the health of that society. One can also read a brief Truthout interview with Wilkinson on the consequences of inequality here. 

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Why We Regulate (by Paul Krugman)

May 15, 2012
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One of the characters in the classic 1939 film “Stagecoach” is a banker named Gatewood who lectures his captive audience on the evils of big government, especially bank regulation — “As if we bankers don’t know how to run our own banks!” he exclaims. As the film progresses, we learn that Gatewood is in fact skipping town with a satchel full of embezzled cash. As far as we know, Jamie Dimon, the chairman and C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase, isn’t planning anything similar. He has, however, been fond of giving Gatewood-like speeches about how he and his colleagues know what they’re doing,…

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How ego and ideology are destroying the world’s greatest public university (Mark LeVine)

May 12, 2012
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How ego and ideology are destroying the world’s greatest public university (Mark LeVine)

Irvine, CA – The University of California is home to many of the country’s leading scholars in dozens of fields, and for decades it has been an important laboratory for social change in the United States. It has also been at the forefront of many struggles for political, social, civil and labour rights struggles, as both an incubator of new ideas and practices and as a laboratory in which various attempts to change the balance of power and responsibility between social groups, and between society and government, have played out.  So you might not be surprised to learn that as one…

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Capitalist logic and student debt

May 12, 2012
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Those who are interested in understanding the American political system–And shouldn’t we all be?–would do well to pay close attention to these two organizations: 1. Republic Report (http://www.republicreport.org/) 2. Open Secrets (http://www.opensecrets.org/) Both organizations are doing good work keeping track of how the US Chamber  of Commerce and the major corporations pervert the political process and prevent politicians from working in the public interest. One good example of this was illuminated in a recent Truthout article by Lee Fang that connects corporate lobbying with a looming rise in student loan interest rates. The following passage gives the essence of Fang’s article: On…

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Obama vs Romney on energy and climate change issues

April 27, 2012
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Obama vs Romney on energy and climate change issues

Rebecca Leber of Thinkprogress put together a comprehensive chart outlining the different stands Obama and Romney have on energy and climate change issues. The chart is accompanied by a detailed list of sources and further elaborations.  

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Iceland’s president explains why the world needs to rethink its addiction to finance

April 27, 2012
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A few days ago, Adam Taylor, journalist for the Business Insider interviewed Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who has been President of Iceland since 1996, and announced last month he would be running for a fifth term. Keep reading to hear his thoughts on Iceland’s recovery, and how a large financial sector can ruin a nation. Ragnar Grímsson connects the dots in a openly manner that unfortunately proves to be very rare in contemporary politics all around the world. Definitely a must-read. You can find the full transcript on Business Insider. Some noteworthy paragraphs: Whereas in many other countries, until recent months,…

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Can there be “good” corporations? (by Marjorie Kelly)

April 22, 2012
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When companies are owned by workers and the community—instead of Wall Street financiers—everything changes. Our economic system is profoundly broken. To anyone paying attention, that much is clear. But what’s less clear is this: Our approach to fixing the economy is broken as well. The whole notion of “fighting corporate power” arises from an underlying belief that there is no alternative to capitalism as we know it. Starting from the insight that capitalism has become virtually a universal economy, we conclude that our best hope is to regulate corporations and work for countervailing powers like unions. But then we’ve lost…

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