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CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: ADDRESS: (541)346-5511 Oregon Daily Emerald E-MAIL: P.O.BOX 3159 ode@oregon.uoregon.edu Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: www uoregon.edu/~ode Perspectives EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Laura Cadiz The price of environmental protection AN EMERALD EDITORIAL By focusing on how to profit from environmentalism, the conference on sustainability ignores the inevitable cost of reform Some movements seem un avoidable. Take anti-communism. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, politicians on all sides of the po litical spectrum couldn’t find enough nasty things to say about the Communist party or anyone who might one have looked in the windows of its headquarters. It didn’t matter what solution you offered or even if you had the op posite approach of other anti Communist crusaders; as long as everyone used the rhetoric of Red-baiting, everyone was happy. Except the Communists, of course. These days, there’s a new rhetoric for popularity-minded politicians, companies and lobby ists to use — sustainable develop ment. No one is quite sure what the concept means: Left-leaning environmental groups tend to consider sustainability as inter twined with reduced growth and careful restrictions on business, while corporations worry mostly about the development part of the equation and how to sustain prof its in the bargain. But everyone knows that, in the 1990s, you’d better be talking about sustainable development if you’re going to be talking at all. Remember who got screwed over in all the discussion about communism? The Communists. Well, in all this discussion about environmentally sensitive busi ness practices, one crucial ele ment stands to suffer: the environ ment. That doesn’t have to be the case. Sustainability can lead to a consensus between environmen tally aware communities and the companies that want to use their IMP. "\ CHRIS HUTCHINSON/Emerald resources, providing for better corporate practices and an in creased awareness of what the planet needs to survive. Too of ten, however, all that gets pro duced is a lot of hot air (some thing, given Clinton’s pro-business stance on global warming, we can ill afford). Today, Tuesday and Wednes day, the University risks produc ing a lot more hot air on the sub ject of sustainability. A large number of business, government and University groups are spon soring the First Annual Sustain able Business Symposium. Many of the groups associated with the event are admirable, and the conference has the potential to allow these groups a positive forum. Companies do need to take small steps toward increased effi ciency by reducing pollution, de creasing energy use and respond ing to consumer demands for more ecologically friendly prac tices. What worries us is that the con ference focuses too much on one side of the debate. Corporations are increasingly choosing to par ticipate in discussions where their most vocal critics are absent. If sustainability relies upon dis course among a vast range of in terested parties, all those parties need to be involved. Where on the schedule are radi cal environmental groups who be lieve growth is inherently tied to environmental degradation? Even moderate environmental groups are notably absent, largely be cause the remaining corporate friendly speakers are more likely to reach a consensus that partici pating businesses, such as Nike and Fred Meyer, will be happy with. None of this should discredit environmental gains that are be ing made by corporations. Never theless, just because a company recycles more paper than ever be fore doesn't mean it doesn’t still cut down trees. Whatever claims are made at the conference need to be critically examined. In particular, assertions that sustainability and efficiency can be achieved without harming profits need to be looked at close ly. Conference organizers say in their press release, “We will demonstrate that ecological stew ardship can improve profits.” The truth is profitability and environmentalism cannot be linked forever. Noah Walley and Bradley Whitehead argue in the Harvard Business Review that companies that revamped opera tions in the late 1980s and early 1990s to make themselves more environmentally efficient have made all the profitable cuts they can. While we disagree with Walley and Whitehead about whether this justifies more cuts, we cer tainly believe environmental pro tection will inevitably incur cor porate cost. Companies have profited for too long by exploiting underpriced resources and pol luting the environment without paying the hidden ecological and social costs. Programs, such as the Universi ty conference, that focus on prof itable ways to save the planet and feature discussions titled “How Businesses Can Target Environ mentally Conscious Consumers” ignore the inevitable corporate cost of true sustainability. There are economically sound propos als for environmental reform — one of the most common and po tentially effective is a “carbon tax” of some kind. These propos als do not leave corporations un scathed, however, even if they don’t harm the overall economy. Allowing companies to focus discussions only on profitable ways to save the planet creates an environmental discourse in which proposals that harm corpo rate profits seem radical rather than reasonable. The Sustainable Business Symposium skewers the debate, allowing companies and observers to maintain a false view of what effective environmental reform entails. The bottom line is that environ mental programs that start and finish by focusing on the corpo rate bottom line cannot solve the environmental crisis by them selves. Industry has been a major factor in the creation of the cur rent environmental catastrophe; it must do more than profit from the cleanup. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial hoard. Re sponses may lie sent to ode@ore gon.uoregon.edu LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Collegio misguided Among the glut of low-quality respons es to an Emerald editorial this year, Jonathan Collegio’s blind affirmation of free trade (ODE, Nov. 5) is by far one of the most myopic I’ve seen. Comparative advantage may be a cornerstone of eco nomic theory, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be critiqued or questioned in light of issues that go beyond the realm of eco nomics and into questions of things like food security, social justice and environ mental consequences. Arguing that more free trade is the panacea for economic ills the world over papers over the violence that “comparative advantage” perpetrates in ways unseen by the economic lens. I’ll try to explain why in as few words as pos sible. Let’s take agricultural trade between the United States and Mexico, for example. The United States is one of the world’s largest producers of corn and, for a whole bunch of reasons (climate, scientific re search, subsidies (oops, free trade goes out the window with that one)), you might say we have a comparative advantage in the growing of corn. Thus, we have been able to sell or dump lots of cheap corn onto countries like Mexico. So far so good; we get the profits, and Mexico gets the corn to eat. But let’s ask a series of questions. First, what does this do on a large scale in Mexico? Well, not very many farmers, large or small, can compete with U.S. com imports, so they either go out of business or grow other crops. Most likely is the plantation-grown, out-of-sea son broccoli and asparagus we are eating this winter that, in order to look good for U.S. consumers, have been sprayed with enough pesticides to kill Rodan. So now Mexico has a comparative advantage in frilly fresh fruits and vegetables that get exported to the plates of us non-seasonal eating gluttons. Second question: What does this do to small-scale Mexican farm ers who have grown com for generations for local and indigenous markets? Again, they cannot compete price-wise in the corn market with cheaper imports and so either leave agriculture or grow wonder ful things like cash crops, such as peas for Birdseye or Brussels sprouts, in volatile export markets where lower prices are only a day away. Oh, yeah, lest we forget the other side of the small-peasant coin: Now that large companies are growing broccoli and asparagus, the land those small peasants are (were) on is valuable, so the land is either bought cheaply or taken by any number of strong-arm tac tics. It's the double-pincer effect. Either way, the tradition of small-scale corn growing, most likely through very ecolog ical means of beneficial crop combina tions, gets shoved to the wayside by ge netically engineered, fertilizer- and pesticide-pumped good ol’ American com. So in the name of cheap com for Mexi cans, the country's ability to produce com as a staple crop for the people is gone. This is a serious problem if we address questions about food security in a country that now must rely on imports of com to feed its people. Does comparative advan tage really matter that much when a famine hits or some economic disaster oc curs, like the falling peso (oops, already happened), in which the buying power of the poor falls even further? Probably not to the people who aren’t eating or can’t get enough to eat. And how does the growing of cash crops, Mexico’s new comparative advantage, help to benefit farmers forced off their land? It usually doesn’t. Not only do most of those people not see the mon ey from these crops (it goes to the multi national corporation or larger landowner in control of the land), but they also get to wallow in gallons of toxins on huge farms, work for very little money and probably lack job security. And let’s not forget the lasting environmental consequences of the fertilizers, pesticides and canning fa cilities used to grow those off-season veg etables. You could almost say Mexico and its citizens have another comparative ad vantage in taking on these environmental problems if you stuck this into an eco nomic equation. With food particularly, the unleashing of comparative advantage in the name of free trade is not all it’s cracked up to be. The only problem is one has to step out side of the economic paradigm to appre ciate the fact that free trade only helps those with an already large economic ad vantage and may hurt and affect vast numbers of people in ways that are not easily captured by an equation stating the benefits of comparative advantage. Obvi ously, the actions of the Zapatistas should tell Mr. Collegio that coming out against free trade is not only not “preposterous” but a matter of life and death. Oh, by the way, it is painfully obvious that Mr. Col legio has never taken a class outside of economics dealing with the social conse quences of capitalism in Third World set tings. Many are offered on campus. I sug gest he try one to open his eyes to a world outside of the bottom line. Mike Goodman Graduate student
