Environmental ethics-Air Pollution

After President Bush II got into office , he repealed the Kyoto protocols which would have reduced the amount of U .S . carbon dioxide emissions . Rather than helping the citizens , these policies usually benefit exclusively the large oil companies and other barons of industry whose liability balance sheets are reduced when they are not held to strict environmental regulations . One ethical compromise between business and environmental interests is called `ecological modernization , which , according to Gonzalez (2005 is the idea that environmental protection and economic growth are complementary goals . This complementary relationship can be

achieved primarily through the development of technology (p . 91 . This technology proposes to use materials more efficiently with less waste and ecological damage than the old methods of production , and this is the view most in line with the author 's own . One misconception about environmentally conscious people is the notion that we are against progress and technology . Admittedly , there are those that believe that modern society has done irreparable damage to human society and the natural world and that everyone should return to the old ways of the hunter /gatherer or agricultural worker . However , the author believes that development should go forward rather than backward - especially the need to live in harmony with nature (not at its mercy , nor as its adversary

Perhaps the laws and methods governing industry from the prior century reflected mankind 's belief resources are , in fact limitless along with forgetting that the planet is a closed system . From the industrial era to the twentieth century , fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum were used to fuel the production of goods and transporting them to market By the middle of the twentieth century , clouds of smoky fog would hang over several large American cities . Since then , several news stories have broken about the...