Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Environmental Ethics

One important issue in environmental ethics, brought to the fore of our social consciousness by the BP oil spill, is the question of responsibility in response to disasters. This question can be asked in a different ways. First, one could focus on who is to blame and argue that those people have the duty to repair their disaster. Or, one could focus on the government as an agency with a duty to protect its citizens. Examples of these lines of thought are presented in the following articles:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/02/opinion/la-ed-bp-20100602

This opinion piece from the LA Times argues that the government bears a responsibility to solve the crisis in order to protect its citizens from harm. The editorial board obviously believes that the duty of response lies on government in such large scale disasters, even though BP might be at fault for the spill itself. They obviously believe the government is the party with the most responsibility (after the scale of the disaster was known) for clean-up and relief because the citizens depend on its protection.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/us/25liability.html?scp=6&sq=bp%20responsibility&st=cse

This story brings to light the legal issues of liability, showing that, according to our current system of law, BP may only be responsible for a limited financial amount. The other companies involved--Anadarko, Mitsui, and Transocean--have all tried to place legal liability on BP or limit their own. Andarko claims BP was “gross[ly] negligent,” which would remove their own liability. Mitusi promised all of their revenues would go to relief efforts, which this article suggests may be in an effort to “shield it[self] from liability.” And Transocean claims, simply, that BP is contractually obligated to assume all liability for pollution and contamination by their drilling agreement. The legal battle this article lays out displays the implicit ideas of responsibility and blame acting in our legal system right now. We should investigate these ideas by asking whether or liability should be reliant on who is blame, or if it is determined by who profits from the risk, or if it can be determined by contracts. This is further explored in the issue of shareholder blame, as discussed here:

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/can-the-u-s-punish-bps-shareholders/

The various views offered in this piece all discuss whether or not the shareholders of BP, the legal owners and those who profit from BP's activities can be held financially responsible for the spill. The arguments offered vary widely. One writer claims that shareholders risk their investments when they buy stock, and can therefore be penalized by the loss of those investments when the company’s actions lead to a disaster. Another claims that we cannot punish BP by more than the $75 million they are limited to paying by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, even though the cost of clean-up will be far greater, because doing so would do too much damage to the rule of law. Another argues that not paying dividends to its shareholders would demonstrate BP’s good intent to the public. Another asserts that BP should pay those harmed by the spill because they have an ethical duty to do so. All of these arguments, as well as the rest in the piece, demonstrate various ideas on responsibility. We must ask ourselves whether or not those who caused the disaster should be made to undertake the response, or if those who profit from the enterprise, such as the shareholders, are the ones who are responsible for that effort. Or, we must decide whether the government’s duty to protect its citizens places the burden of response of it, and the issue of blame is only secondary, with no impact on how the clean-up is done. The way in which we respond to the BP oil spill demonstrates our thinking on these issues.