Ethics and the Green Revolution

| 03 November 2009

A conscious understanding of our physical environment has been slowly seeping into our lives for years, beginning with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a book on the effects of the chemical DDT on our environment published in 1962. Along with huge strides in efforts to protect the environment have come many dubious claims of concern backed up by little or no action. The word Ethics refers to a set of moral principles generally thought to be essentially good. While many individuals show their concern through word and action, a special species of individual, the corporation, has been less than principled.

If you watch TV at all, you will have seen ads touting the greening of Chevron/Texaco, BP Fuels, and various car manufacturer product lines. In a more forgiving world we might assume that these companies have our best interests at heart and are trying really, really, hard to protect the environment and minimize the impact of their operations and sales on the environment. Based on their actions, rather than their imaginative advertising campaigns, increased profits and higher share price trump ethical corporate behavior every time. A classic example is Texaco’s treatment of drilling wastes in the Ecuadorian rain forest (http://chevrontoxico.com/). Texaco, now Chevron/Texaco, abandoned pools of toxic drilling waste in some of the most sensitive habitat on earth. Read what they say about corporate responsibility at http://www.chevron.com/about/chevronway/ and make your own conclusions. Did Madison Avenue help them a bit with their corporate responsibility pledge?

Another great example, perhaps one of the most painful in today’s business climate, is General Motor’s single-minded pursuit of short-term profit at the expense of long-term health. GM continued to build and sell huge SUVs even as gas prices climbed out of sight, driving the company into bankruptcy on the wheels of Suburbans. The question “is this the right thing to do” apparently never came up. At least GM doesn’t try to put a green spin on their operations (http://gm.com). They apparently will be satisfied if they just survive.

I don’t suggest that corporate malfeasance and lack of ethics occurred in a vacuum, however. The word “Ethos” refers to the fundamental character or spirit of a group or society. As a society, we have given license to, and actively encouraged, corporate behavior by our seemingly endless consumption of goods and services, housing, food, and transportation. If more people drove small, fuel efficient cars, GM would have made more small fuel efficient cars. If we were content to live in small, energy efficient homes, builders would build them for us. Clearly we have some internal attraction to the biggest and the best that requires a conscious decision on our part to overcome. Whether innate or driven by years of exposure to Madison Avenue’s blandishments, as a Nation we are called upon by our environment to change our way of living. With any luck, the change will come within our lifetimes and be a choice we make, not a disaster forced upon us by a ruined earth.