Environmentally Profitable 91
lemmingEffect writes: "Came across this NYT article about how many companies are finding unexpected cost-savings for using more environmentally-friendly manufacturing processes and materials. Kinda like getting paid to clean your room--sure would have made me happier as a kid. =)"
Well, duh (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is when you try to get too far ahead of existing technology. Then you wind up with kludged-together stuff that doesn't work right. A good example is the too-early adoption of electronic engine controls by Detroit in the 1970s. In principle, it was a great idea. In practice, the technology wasn't robust enough yet, and U.S. cars suffered reliability problems for years as a result.
(They're still behind Japanese and German cars, but not by much -- in fact, a crappy Chevy today is considerably more reliable than the "bulletproof" Toyotas of the late '80s.)
Re:Well, duh (Score:4, Informative)
Yep (Score:1, Insightful)
Its a bit like the UK record on CO2 emmissions - by closing all the coal fired power stations we cut billions of tonnes of CO2 emmissions. But our energy usage continues to rise - to cut further we need to cut usage - MUCH harder than simply switching fuels. Sending the HP toner carts back is one thing - using less of them quite another.
The world is not saved because a few corps stop throwing out all the half full cans of solvent at the end of each day. We're dooomed! we're all dooomed.
You might not have noticed (Score:1)
The rhetoric of environmentalism, as you said, always seems to be to cut out more and more of the frills like electricity, treated water, flushable toilets, all of which seem to make sense when you explain them the right way, but which in the end only serve to deterorate our quality of life.
And we take it in the bum every time
This article correctly points out that some new techniques that nobody would have thought up, had greenies not stepped in and started picketing and lobbying, would save money after all. I think its safer to call them Alternative, however.
Re:You might not have noticed (Score:2, Interesting)
However, it's theoretically possible that some types of environmental damage could seriously affect our human quality of life.
We could wipe out the ozone layer, and animals would evolve to be more resistant to UV radiation. Some probably wouldnt be able to, and some would, but in the end we're not wiping out all forms of life on earth. But, I'd rather not have to take a bath in SPF 5000 every time I leave the house. Or only be able to go out at night. Sure, we could do it, but it would suck.
Same thing with global warming. If, (and it's a big if, I know. But bear with me here)... If we are causing the planet to warm up noticably, there would likely be some changes. THe land currently used for farmland might be turned to desert, for example. Sure, land that was previously frozen further north would now be a decent temperature for farmland. But it would seriously affect the quality of life for millions (billions?) or people.
As for new technologies and more efficiency being the answer... it's the answer for some problems, but not all.
-J5K
Scratching the Surface (Score:2, Interesting)
"Contact with my own species has always disappointed me. Solitude gives me a freedom of mind and an independence of action." -Captain Nemo
Re:Scratching the Surface (Score:1)
>It's not profitable to wage wars
Isn't it? I'd like to read some facts.
>have people dying from curable diseases
It's very profitable.
It's not profitable to cure people, who have not enough money to pay the cure.
Furthermore it reduces the feel of necessity in the paying society.
What about the various HIV vaccines and Africa
Why should a 50year old man be hospitalised and get a cardiac pulse generator?
>or commit crimes.
Who is now beeing an idealist (or to cite your words a "weenie")?
Selling drugs is not profitable?
Bribing is not profitable?
Why do we then have any crime?
>You socialists [...] attitude are the worst criminals in the whole human history
What about the people who promoted slavery, childwork, repression of unions for the sake of maximisation of profit?
All those deeds were very profitable and economical sound.
Lastly, no one in this thread suggested that property is a crime, but the mindless maximisation of profit without is
Obligatory Non-reg Link (Score:2)
WTF is with this "Lameness filter encountered.? It disappeared as soon as i put this text below the link...
Troll? (Score:1)
Somebody mod the parent to this back up, please.
Re:moderation (Score:1)
We should pollute less though. At least I don't want to walk around with a mask because of the bad air.
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:3, Insightful)
michael is a known greenie tree-hugger
...is it any surprise he would be trying to advance his agenda with favorable articles?
Try this on for size:
The NYT is an avowed big-business-and-corrupt-politics-friendly rag, bought and paid for by advertising dollars, not citizen voices.
So is it any surprise that this article should come out now, now that people are finally starting to freak out about the vast environmental damage done by large corporations run with nothing in mind but their precious, almighty dollar? You mention the hysteria yourself--well, suddenly we're starting to see a rash of media pieces in which the Corporations Aren't The Bad Guys Anymore. No, Really, We're Environmentally Friendly. Now Give Us That Dollar.
The tactic is to keep people from realizing that allowing businesses to get out of the people's control--like we have for the last hundred years--IS the evil, it IS the reason for things like the shitty environment, the unfair economics, even the lack of AIDS medications in poor countries. And it'll only get worse as long as we allow it to go on.
What you're seeing in this article is the scrabbling of the fatcats to make sure that people don't pin them, and their absurd "free trade is free" rhetoric, as the cause of all these awful, pressing problems. This article wasn't advancing the "tree-hugger" agenda, you twerp, though I guess we can't blame you for falling for the angle they obviously wanted you to fall for. No, this piece, and the glut of others like it you'll probably run into, was propping up the big-business agenda--or as they say in Fight Club, "polishing the brass on the Titanic." 'Cause it's all comin' down, baby.
Sara Thustra
"Insustainable" does not mean "can go on until the rich feel they're rich enough".
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll take the tyranny of The New York Times and their corporate fatcat sponsors over your brand of "revolution" anyday, since, even though you didn't mention it, your idea of rule by "citizen voices" is to hand power to exactly those few citizen voices who assent to *your* idea of what is right and just, and to hell with anyone else.
We've already tried it that way a number of times--China under Mao, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. It got pretty ugly, to say the least.
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
That is why I am glad to live in a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy. My rights* are protected regardless of how unpopular a minority I belong to or how "unnecessary" those rights seem to some. It's not perfect** but it protects against "the mob" a #@!! of a lot better than a real Democracy.
* Traditional Western Civ. Bill of Rights sort of stuff, not that Eastern Bloc "You have the right to a state job, state housing and food rations crap"
** Just look at treatment of the Japanese during WW2 or Colored People in the pre-civil rights South, or at how DMCA and the Assualt Weapons Ban violate the Bill of Rights w/o going through proper constitutional amendment proceedures to see how unpopular people or rights can be trampled upon even with consititutional protections against the whims of the majority. But the treatment of the unpopular could be far, far worse, and in either a pure democracy or totalitarianism it would be.
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
My rights* are protected regardless of how unpopular a minority I belong to or how "unnecessary" those rights seem to some.
Your points are well-stated, and I agree with them. Furthermore, I think you'll find agreement from everyone in this discussion about value of constitutions in limiting the power of majorities to oppress minorities.
One thing that might interest you is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, passed by the UN General Assembly in 1948. The US, like the vast majority of world nations, deems various parts of it "unnecessary," and the "unpopular minority" (part of it, at least) that suffers has been commonly referred to by sociologists as the "underclass." I recognize the controversial nature of these ideas, but at the very least they should serve as a reminder that there are many perspectives on what "rights" should be protected. In my personal opinion, when malnourished, grossly undereducated children become adults and are said to have "equality of opportunity" their with well-fed, well-educated counterparts, there may be a few lines missing from the Bill of Rights.
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
You may notice, however, that in my above comment I specifically restrict my definition of Rights to the "Western" ideas of rights; to be more specific, I restrict it to the definition of Rights as an area of a person's life within which a person is free to make choices that are not restricted or dictated by any government. That doesn't mean that Fate or circumstance or economics or other unpleasantness of reality may not intrude. For example, I have the right to voice my opinions on political issues but I can't afford to take out an ad in the middle of the Superbowl to promote them. Ted Turner could, but that doesn't mean he has more of a right to free speech than I because in neither case is the Gov't restricting us (in fact if anything Turner's right is being restricted more by Gov't since the content of televised material is regulated by the FCC and so he couldn't descend into a string of obscenities if he wanted).
The problem here is that there was another very powerful group that was instrumental in the foundation of the U.N. and has also left their mark on the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights: that group is the Soviet Union. If you continue reading the Declaration you will notice that it also contains portions of those dreaded "Eastern Bloc" versions of rights that I mentioned my opposition to. These rights are not "areas of your life you are free to pursue w/o governmental restriction" they are physical items or services that everyone is supposed to get "for free." The problem is that, as those of us who live in the real world know, nothing is "free" and that providing those "rights" can only be done by violating the real Rights that were mentioned in the previous portions of the Declaration (like Article 17: "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property"). It is not like governments can just wave a magic wand and create the wealth needed to pay for such communist "rights". The only way those things can be created is through the labor of people.
How can a gov't provide these communist "rights" to its citizens in accord with the UN Declaration? Well, the gov't could confiscate the products that everyone has a "right" to (like food and clothing) and compel people to provide the services that everyone has a "right" to (like education medical care). But, taking peoples property and forcing them to provide free services violates Articles 17 and 4 against confiscating property and slave labor, respectively. Of course, the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc would have had no problem with either of those methods. The gov't could pay for the products and services and then hand them out to its citizens; but how does it get the money since, as your parents may have told you, money doesn't just grow on trees. Well, it taxes people for it. In other words, it confiscates a little bit of the products of a lot of people's labor. While economically more palatable, that is still no more justifiable to steal a little bit from several people than it is to confiscate all the property from one person. Either way, the gov't is taking peoples property and labor at gunpoint and redistributing it. Doesn't sound like my concept of Rights at all. In other words, I don't consider "the right of the gov't to take people's stuff at gunpoint (or threat thereof) for redistribution to other people" to be an "unpopular right." It is not a right at all. It is tyranny. Calling it an "right" is the worst sort of Orwellian double-think. It is wrong, no matter how badly you feel about the poor hungry, undereducated children you use to justify it. No, it is more than wrong; it is evil.
Look at Article 26 of this precious UN Declaration: "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory." Isn't it strange that in a document that should be listing areas of peoples lives that are to be free from Gov't restriction they would list anything as being "compulsory?" Well, this is a reflection of the Article's true origins: The Communist Manifesto. For those of you who have lived in some kind of fairyland your whole lives, when a gov't says something is "compulsory" that is another way of saying "we will use violence (up to and including killing you) in order to make you do this;" because fundamentally all gov't orders are backed by violence, no matter how "benevolent" the gov't claims to be.
Fortunately the Soviet Union is dead. Unfortunately communism is not. It lives on not only in the hearts of weak-minded or evil people, but also in such institutional anachronisms as some of the later articles of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Until this UN declaration is purged of these remnants of Soviet influence it will remain an inferior document to the Bill of Rights and I will oppose its strict imposition on any people. While we're at it we should rid the U.N. of other remnants of communism still existing in its various agencies and bureaucracies. Not "rid" it the way the Soviets or Chicom's would (i.e. mass murder), but just fire them and make them get a job in academia. Or would that violate Article 23, which says everyone has a right to a job.
One last comment, I am not against everyone having access to food and clothing and healthcare and education. I am merely against the idea of a government that forces me to provide (or pay for) other people's food and healthcare at gunpoint. Charity should be voluntary. If someone wants to keep all the products of his labor to himself, then he is selfish and merits the disdain of his neighbors, but he is within his Rights to do so. Is there, after all, any more fundamental Right than the Right to one's own person and therefore the Right to the products of one's toil?
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
You can, of course, opt to be consistent about all this and be an anarchist rather than claiming that one particular set of rights is cost and coercion-free as opposed to others, something that is demonstratably wrong.
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
What gives you the right to own a piece of land instead of me or someone else? The land wasn't a product of your labor, so why can't govt tax you for using it?
I have no problem with extending copyright to infinity since I can reproduce the work using my own mind. What I do have a problem with is patents that deprive me that right.
Somewhere in between these two there is non-intellectual property which is limited and therefore gives someone a right and deprives others the same right at the same time.
I don't see any better way to arrange things though. Maybe land should be seen as leased instead of owned. Where society can regulate how you can use the land and tax you for the same. Within limits of course (hah! like govt has limits..).
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
There's a reason for that.
I assume you're familiar with the difference between "positive rights" and "negative rights." A "positive right" is a right that requires real effort by other people. The "right to housing" requires someone to build the house. The "right to health care" requires someone to spend ten or twelve years in medical school and then give away their labor.
OTOH, "negative" rights only require inaction by others. A prime example is "freedom of speech" as practiced in the US. For the right to be secure, all that has to happen is that nobody actively tries to interfere.
In other words, it's fully possible to enjoy a negative right without interfering with the negative rights of others.It's just plain impossible to have a positive right without interfering with others. Lets take this "right to health care" that's been a topic of discussion in the US for the last decade. For you to receive health care, someone else must provide it. That means a doctor must either care for you gratis, thus violating his property rights to his own labor, or someone must pay the doctor.
Where does the pay come from? Probably some sort of taxation. Taxation is enforceable LAW. And when you look at the word 'enforceable,' you damn well better see that the word FORCE is right at the middle of it. That's what law is: FORCE. Law is meaningless without a bunch of guys with blue poly-blend clothes, tin badges, guns, and stupid-looking mustaches to make it happen.
So, how many positive rights do you really want to have? Just bear in mind that for each one that you decide to enshrine into law, someone will likely die for not providing it. How much blood is "the right to education" worth to you?
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want to ignore history, that's your prerogative, and you do so at your own peril, but the "troll" label is not supposed to be used to silence opinions you disagree with.
Re:Not a Favorable Article (Score:1)
I see your point, now that you're stating it clearly. I don't agree, though. Every revolution is an ideological one, and most large ones are "for the people". You don't think the American Revolution wasn't about political and economic ideals, and wasn't "for the people of the colonies"? (Whether or not that revolution actually was about the common folk is another issue)
And while I agree that arguing that the NYT is a tool of the capitalists sounds Maoist, I don't see how it's undemocratic. If we're all participants in government, shouldn't we have access to the least-adulterated information we can get? Is "the tyranny of The New York Times and their corporate fatcat sponsors" really freedom? Is it really sufficient for a participatory government? There's a real debate here.
If you want to ignore history, that's your prerogative, and you do so at your own peril, but the "troll" label is not supposed to be used to silence opinions you disagree with.
Liek I said before, there's a real debate here. Comparing someone to Pol Pot because they use the phrase "it's all comin' down, baby" is not participating in that debate. You did notice how the first paragraph intentionally mirrored the tone of the post being replied to, right? Are you sure the guy wasn't being satirical? Not even in part?
As for "troll", that is the word for exactly those people who launch into Pol Pot comparisons instead of actually debating against the opinion they disagree with. I didn't see any arguments by you for why the NYT isn't a "capitalist tool" just like this guy says. Considering that it is in fact supposed to make money (like all newspapers), the argument that it may alter its content to suit its sponsors isn't at all an inappropriate claim, and is one that's been made many times before in many, many situations. How many times have I heard complains about objectivity in reporting? Anyway, instead of discussing this, you decided that the guy was a Communist (in part by making assumptions about him, may I add) and attacked that, mainly through name-calling.
Then, when someone (me) points that out, you accuse them of "ignoring history" (as though you didn't present a one-sided version yourself) and of misusing the label "troll". I'm not a moderator, but your first reply did get one vote for "Troll" from someone who is, whereas the article you were replying to did not. Not only am I quite sure that I have correctly labelled your post a "troll", but I've even been backed up by a moderator. So much for that.
Perhaps your first reply should have sounded more like this second one (the one I'm replying to now). This second post states a point clearly and could lead to an interesting discussion. The first isn't even close. It got one vote for troll, and I continue to believe that it should be receive more. But your second post, or at least the first paragraph of your second post, is just fine.
Corporate totalitarism much more harmful (Score:1)
Uh, how about US (and the so called "free" world, more or less) under the tyranny of those fatcat corporate powers and raging consumerism. Seems to me that this is, in the long run, much more harmful and ugly to all of us.
Bring me an eco-fascist totalitarian regime anyday. Atleast they should be killing people fairly.
Long-lasting materials that are easy to recycle (Score:1, Informative)
Steel is more environmentally friendly to produce! Just ask the folks behind the Ultra-Light Steel Auto Body project. Steel releases a lot less CO2 during its manufacture than aluminum. Once again, established big industry maintains its edge over new fangled competitors.
Because a desktop machine is not well-suited for producing the entire side of a car in a single stamping operation from steel sheet and repeating that 300 times an hour. Big, messy industrial processes replaced cottage industries for a reason: they're cheaper in the long run.
As desktop manufacturing gets cheaper, so do the big industrial processes. A desktop machine that can produce some make believe "diamondoid" economically can also produce a lot more steel even more economically and easily! Operating temperatures are lower, formability requirements are lower, ability to rework the steel product is higher, etc. And since steel does the job just fine, why switch over to a more expensive, troublesome, low production rate material like diamondoid?
It's a bit more complicated than that really (Score:2, Informative)
Steel endures much more flex without failure, whereas aluminum reaches its flexibility endurance limit faster. The failure mode of aluminum (bend some and break and absorb energy) is actually safer in the realm of automobile construction.
Aluminum space frames can be manufactured in a single piece, which makes prediction of their real-world behavior much easier to predict through computational models, requiring less physical testing.
Aluminum's lower weight makes it cheaper to transport throughout all phases of automobile manufacture.
If and as the cost per pound can come down enough that the benefits outweigh the costs, or the benefits become more important, we can expect aluminum to have a stronger presence in automotive manufacture.
recently, aluminum has gained ground in niche automotive products like pickup truck tailgates, hood assemblies, engine blocks (with GM introducing their first aluminum block truck engine in 2002)... areas where consumers can see the direct benefits.
I'm not an aluminum grandstander by any means. I just think the "steel is cheaper" argument is way too simple... it's really just a matter of time.
Good thing? (Score:1)
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:2, Interesting)
You can pay for it through higher product prices or higher taxes. While it would be more economically efficient to have consumers foot the bill for the resources consumed and wasted by the products they purchase, at least the environmental efficiences claimed by this NYT article are in fact being realized. And once realized to be profitable, such practices are more likely to be adopted.
The ultimate reality, in my mind, is that many environmental regulations are passed without regard to their economic impact (would you pay 10x the cost for water with 5x lest arsenic in it, when current levels are KNOWN to be safe?).
Thus, I believe it requires public and private cooperation to realize efficient ways to comply with environmental regulations.
Perhaps the best way would be to treat compliance expenses as research projects in cases where affordable methods are not known for compliance, in which the results (such as the practices mentioned in the NYT article) would be 'open source' published as best practices for compliance, and then future funds cut accordingly as the cost uncertainty is eliminated.
It might help to view this as a choice between funneling public funds to develop best practices which are viable or even profitable, versus hiring a bunch of regulators to monitor compliance (and how the heck do you set a fine when the costs of compliance are not well understood? This invites further gaming inefficienies).
Either requires public money. I for one am willing to invest my tax dollars to helping companies develop efficient compliance mechanisms, as long as those results are open-sourced.
Re:Well... (Score:1)
Re:Well... (Score:1)
The above poster is taking the activities of a few crafty and politically savvy companies and trying to claim that such things are the norm.
I am certainly against politicians handing out "corprate welfare" to their corprate allies (like Al Gore and Occidental Petrolium, for example*) but lets not exaggerate the problem (even though that tactic has worked SO well for the environmental extremists) and claim that the majority of all companies are guilty of recieving such "welfare."
*What you thought Bush and the Republicans were the only people with ties to big oil companies?
Re:This is why... (Score:1)
Don't forget that those "stupid and partisan" senators from both parties in the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly not to ratify Kyoto; it was hardly just Bush's doing.
Re:This is why... (Score:1)
These EU hypocrites are making me sick pointing at the US (and Bush) and saying how bad we are, while breathing a huge sigh of relief that they won't have to step forward and sell their people and economies out to pass the protocol in their respective houses of goverment.
Re:This is why... (Score:1)
Mind you, it's always a lot easier to wrap that snotrag you call a flag around one's dick and have a circle-jerk while chanting "USA! USA! USA!" than it is to actually do any thinking or independent research.
Re:This is why... (Score:1)
My ass. That is an outright lie. The programs you refer to were already in place and working. There have no new initiatives from the Kyoto protocols, and there won't be. It's much easier to blame those snotrag wrapped dicks across the pond, than to hammer your own industries with the really painful choices that full compliance with the Kyoto protocols would require.
Oh, and by the way, guess what? The US has far FAR more installed PV capacity than the rest of the world COMBINED. Also the largest single solar electric plant in operation (80MW), also by FAR the largest installed base of wind power.
Now do you want to trade information, or do you want to do the same tired tactic of trading verbal insults (which is usually what you do when you haven't done your homework)?
Re:This is why... (Score:1)
Study the statistics, boy. The US is by far the most polluting nation on earth. By far. So in most causes, it's your pollution we're all cleaning and suffering from. And as your mother surely has told you, it's your job to clean up the mess your party left when they were away for the weekend.
What people ought to realize... (Score:4, Insightful)
In the late 60's and early 70's, the auto industry tried to prevent or forstall the imposition of pollution controlls by insisting that cleaner engines would be less efficent, and that it would be impossible to actually improve their engine technology. The same year that GM and Ford vehigles took a huge penalty in gas milage and performace because the companies were forced to install catalytic converters, Honda introduced a car that met the pollution restrictions without a converter and with excellent gas mileage and reasonable performace for its displacement. But despite the facts, the result of this public relations temper-tantrum is that ever since, enviornmentalism has been linked with sacrifices in prosperity. This is evident in Bush's energy plan, and the US reluctance to cut CO2 emissions.
It has everything to do with corporate (and occasionally individual) resentment at being told what to do. It has nothing to do with the realities of the industries in question. The association of concervation with decreased prosperity is classic FUD.
It's really sad that this realization is news, but I'm glad a few people are finally waking up to it.
Re:What people ought to realize... (Score:1)
Re:What people ought to realize... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes waste is just waste.
For instance mining, I want the silver and it might turn out to be cheaper to scoop out the ore, remove the silver and dump the rest of the dirt back in the ground.
Or how about processed corn? I buy lots of corn on the cob, do my thing, and end up with bags of corn and lots of cob. What do I do with the cobs? Perhaps they make a good fuel, or can be ground up for animal feed, or maybe I can press them together to make building material. Who knows? But whatever I want to do with them, the public has to be willing to pay me more than the cost to process them - the cost of throwing the away. If I would take a lesser hit by throwing away the cobs then that's what makes good economic sense for me.
Looking at nature, there are lots of niche markets. Plants can store chemical energy efficiently so long as they don't expend too much energy in daily life. Animals by contrast show that for a highly mobile lifestyle it's more efficent to discard lots of waste that is too energy costly to reprocess compared with the abundance of food their mobility gives them access to. By contrast algae, fungus, etc breakdown that waste because they aren't mobile enough to find better resaources for them. Of course some organisms do things the way they do because they've never evolved a better method, but natural selection suggests that their place in nature will be close to the most efficient they can be with what they've got.
Technology makes new uses for things and makes reclaiming raw materials more cost effective, but it doesn't make sense for the producer until it is cost effective. If we don't like pollution then one solution is to charge the polluters for dumping stuff into the environment, because then their costs for disposal may exceed the costs of reclaimation or alternative use. Or we might subsidize other solutions so they become less costly than dumping.
Efficiency can be equivalent to cost effective, but it doesn't have to be in all processes and markets.
Re:What people ought to realize... (Score:4, Insightful)
Throwing away your corn cobs may be short-term cost effective. In the long term, though (and especially if you're a big corn-cobbing industry) it's going to become costly as landfills become glutted, transport costs rise, etc.
Installing a power plant that runs on cob fuel might be short-term expensive, but perhaps over the long term it would pay for itself several times over.
Short-term pain for long-term gain? Long-term pain for short-term gain?
It's a balancing act. Pros and cons on every issue.
That all expounded on, I'll conclude with my opinion: in the past, and particularly in the recent past, the emphasis has been on very-short-term gain.
Executives are being paid extravagantly for short-term performance, and are thus making the most immediately-profitable, shortest-term, biggest-payback decisions.
This needs to change. Instead of paying them ten million dollars in bonuses for their performance in the immediate past year, delay it until they've proven for a decade or two that their earlier decisions were the best decisions.
We'll end up with financially healthy companies that have high-quality long-term planning, that don't take the easy way out because it's cheapest *right now*, and that will provide jobs for the next generation.
Plus, my portfolio will probably be happier.
Re:What people ought to realize... (Score:2)
The key thing (with either corn or silver) is that there are end products in the process that have a consistent quality.
Anytime you're generating a large mass of something (like corn cobs) that has a consistent quality to them, there is potential to use it for something else.
If you take this potential raw material, and just throw it in the ground (or burn it), you're wasting the energy used to refine it. Sure, that energy was earmarked for refining the pricipal product (corn or silver), but as a result of that process you have also refined another potential product (corn cobs, or whatever is left of the silver ore). It usually just takes a little cleverness and effort to put this other raw material to good use too.
Re:What people ought to realize... (Score:1)
I think a large part of this attitude rests with the stockholders that are unwilling to support R&D that may take years to pay off. How the hell can a company improve its produts when the stockholders (through the board and the officers) demand that the company be bled dry just to have a bigger dividend next quarter?
Yes, I know that not all stockholders are so shortsighted, and that it's no secret that a company must spend at least some money on R&D just to be competitive. The actual truth is probably some gray area.
A good part of the problem is those STUPID stockholders that have no business tying their own shoes, let alone influencing our economy, livelihoods, market, and environment. I think we have all seen what kind of turmoil these stupid people have created over the last few years. Putting such insane funding into those crazy ventures was not only a waste of resources, but it makes life difficult for the "honest" ventures.
Re:What people ought to realize... (Score:1)
Enviromentalism will only become more profitable. (Score:2)
The key factor that everyone misses is that we obtain our resources from the environment. The amount of resources on the planet will never get larger, but the amount of people will always increase. This means less resources per person as the population increases. To add to this problem, when people waste resources by throwing them into landfills, etc, this decreases the amount of resources per person even more.
Supposedly the basic law of economics will save us from running out of resources. The less resources there are to spread around, the more expensive they will be. The price will get exponentially great, like a y=1/x curve. Eventually this will get to a point where only the rich can have basic resources.
So, our economy needs to become more efficient, reusing resources in order to keep from falling into this future problem.
Has anyone read the book Red Mars? [amazon.com] I like this book as it shows a good example of what happens to an economy with no respect for the enviroment and it's limited resources.
Re:Enviromentalism will only become more profitabl (Score:2)
First off, who says the amount of people will always increase? Many industrialized nations have seen great dorps in population growth. Some places have even fallen so far that the birth rate doesn't match the death rate and thus they are actually shrinking. (IIRC, Italy was the leading example of this) All environments produce limits on what a sustainable population size is. It just happens that humans are capable of occupying an incredibly large environment.
Secondly, our most important resource is energy. Fossil fuels, wind, hydro-electric and solar power all ultimately derive their energy content from that big ball of fire in the sky. The sun will be with us for a real long time and technology has been moving it to be cheaper not more expensive to harness the energy as it comes out. Fusion (if it ever works) may provide virtually limitless energy supplies as well.
This is a general trend, the amount of resources available doesn't change much over time, but the cost to use them goes down because technology improves. Perhaps someday we will resort to mining landfills for raw materials but right now we are no where close to being critically short on most resources. For many raw materials the amount harvested from the environment still exceeds the amount consumed and discarded each year. Often we find alternatives to anything that is suddenly in short supply.
Coexisting peacefully with our environment is a good thing and we have been slowly moving in that direction. Don't think however that resource limits are going to cramp our lifestyles anytime soon.
Re:Enviromentalism will only become more profitabl (Score:1)
My personal belief is that just to be sure, we should go ahead and start expanding out into space anyway.
Interestingly, the book also predicted that around 1985 there would be the potential for dangerous internal political issues on the subject of computerized records, computerized surveillance, and improved techniques for preventing disturbances as well as improved means of terrorism and "agitprop".
Environmental accounting (Score:4, Interesting)
This article just cites examples where the gov't has mandated environmental accounting and gives disincentives to inefficient processes. If only we could get people to use EA just because it's good for the environment!
Metropolis: good article, same subject (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0801/mcd /index.html [metropolismag.com]
About architect William McDonough who's designing 'green' factories for Ford and offices for Adidas.
He's also (with chemist Dr. Michael Braungart) been reponsible for technological feats such as a swiss textile factory waste water is actually cleaner than the tap water that comes in and a few buildings so energy efficient that they actually produce a surplus.
He's of the belief that it's not enough to minimize environmental impact -- one must maximize environmental (and cost) benefits. The savings that his energy-efficient designs provide them companies he builds them for can pay construction costs in a matter of a year or two.
I sincerely hope this kind of thinking represents the future of big business.
Re:Metropolis: good article, same subject (Score:1)
Kinda like getting paid to clean your room... (Score:1)
Great Propaganda (Score:1, Insightful)
I want to be clear that I am not against keeping the environment clean, I am just against deluding ourselves into thinking that it is cheaper to have high environmental standards than it is to have low ones (unless you start playing with the accounting system like the article suggests and assigning dollar values to intangible things*). Such delusions are not helpful. I will admit that the article is probably right about environmental groups being more effective at dealing with businesses when they learn to talk the language of businessmen; that was an informative tidbit. Any change a business makes, they will tend to try to find a way to make it profitible, so I am not surprised that as an UNINTENDED SIDE EFFECT of environmental regulation, some businesses have figured out a way to make money off their compliance efforts.
Having made the radical claim that high envirnomental standards cost more to achieve than low standards in most cases; I will admit that there is a link between profit and a clean environment, but in my experience it usually goes the other way. Companies looking for ways to make the most profit tend to also make the most efficient use of raw materials and energy. I have written plenty of capital justifications for changing processes or buying new equipment based on just such efficiency improvements. While the pursuit of profit will help the environment we cannot count on profit alone to keep the country clean. There are too many times where the cheapest thing to do would be to improperly dispose of your waste products. We have to have some judicial, legal, or regulatory measures to prevent abuse of the air and water as waste depositories, but we should not pretend that there is no economic cost to such environmental pursuits.
While they are doing articles on the economics of environmental compliance, I would like to have seen an article on how premature or bad environmental regulation costs money and jobs and consumes extra resources (isn't that what money represents?) and mis-prioritizes dangers. Like the billions of dollars and increadible amounts of man-hours wasted when useful materials like non-amphible asbestos** are banned or restricted because of ignorance (or sensationalism and pandering) in the newsmedia and the regulatory authories.
* I do think we, as a society, need to figure out how to put a dollar value on the cleanliness of our envirnoment so that we can more accurately determine what evnironmental regulations can be justified and which ones will have the most benifit per dollar invested. It seems unusual to me that this is actually being done on a corprate level; but I am happy that someone is thinking about it. I wonder if this is the Megacorp. equivilent of those businesses that sell all sorts of products on the basis that they cost more but "help the rainforest" or the electric companies whose power costs more (i.e. consumes more resources) but don't release as much pollution. Something like, "Well, our stocks don't pay as big a dividens but you can feel better yourself by owning our stock because we consider community issues in our business decisions."
** which was banned along with the "bad" asbestos.
Re:Great Propaganda (Score:1)
Actually, it would be best for all concerned if every opportunity to legitamately profit from environmentally sensitive behaviour was exploited immediately.
Get a grip here guy. If it costs money to comply with environmental regulations, chances are that much of that money being spent is creating other waste streams. How much of the cost of trucking waste from away from an incinerator is spent on diesel fuel? Or the waste from a power generation station?
The absorbing boundary in where every industrial process feeds its waste into other industrial processes. If an input ends its life in a landfill, that input either needs to be eliminated entirely, or another industrial process needs to be invented which reclaims that input (usefully). It does no good burning a pound of diesel fuel to reclaim a pound of some other input.
Labelling these success stories "propaganda" really irritates me. We should be promoting every small accomplishment at creating closed-loop processes at every opportunity. Enough of this bullshit logic about hydrogren being a "clean" fuel because the carbon is released in some state != California.
Re:Great Propaganda (Score:1)
Perhaps my response is somewhat selfishly motivated. What happens when some finance manager who considers himself technically competent because he can turn on his computer reads this article, then attends a meeting where I present a proposal to achieve compliance in some industrial process at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars a year? Well, he is going to be shocked that I can't do it for free; or else at a profit. After all, the NYT said everyone else was making a profit, why can't I figure out how to do it?
I am not saying that none of my capital proposals or process changes results in both profit and environmental benifit. I have made plenty of purchases or changes that were motivated by profit and also wound up eliminating scrap, reducing energy use, or recycling waste products in some other process. Efficiency improvement is, after all, a common way to achieve cost savings. Unfortunately it rarely goes the other way; and giving people the false impression that with modern engineering methods environmental compliance usually yields cost savings does a disservice to the majority of engineers whose compliance efforts will only result in cost increases. It reduces the apparent achievent of engineers who manage to achieve both goals simultaneously. It also does a disservice to the taxpayers who may now think that tougher environmental regulations will come with no cost to the economy. I am not against bragging about clever engineering or applauding those who do it; I am against presenting an atypical result as if it were the norm.
In a word: bullshit. (Score:1)
Clean electricity consuming more resources to produce? Not if it's being produced via solar power or water turbines; neither of those processes uses a finite resource.
Americans need to stop assuming that theirs is the only country in the world with an understanding of economics. It's that kind of blind arrogance that causes a lot of your problems.
Re:In a word: bullshit. (Score:1)
Natural Capitalism (Score:1, Informative)
-D
Re:Natural Capitalism (Score:1)
Interesting number of comments... (Score:1)
Does this say something about the proprotion of the readership that doesn't care about the environment?
It's a shame.
Re:Interesting number of comments... (Score:1)
That's a strange model of when to open your mouth. Caring about something = having something worth saying. The level of discussion here would be much improved if fewer people believed that.
Re:Interesting number of comments... (Score:1)
> saying.
I see it the otherway around - if people don't care they don't say anything, hence few comments.
>The level of discussion here would be much >improved if fewer people believed that.
Naaa. Free speech is better. Let moderators sift discussion and allow users to browse at whatever level they like.
Sorry I don't agree!