Food sources like plantations and farmlands were likewise destructed as the natural calamities hit with devastation. At this point in time, most peoples great concern is the environment and food supply. It may not be obviously manifested but the relationship of these two simply echoes the worlds concern for sustainable environment so that the children today may still live in a decently habitable future.
Tensions in Gore and Sachs Perspectives
Gore believes that the powerful force of market capitalism can be used as an ally in arresting the global warming issue. It has been a practiced in traditional business to consider environmental factor as external and usually ignored in evaluating the company performance. But business leaders today are said to be re-evaluating their strategy and view on profitability by considering longer-term investments. Parts of these considerations are the pros and cons of the environmental impact. Therefore for Gore, it is possible to support global sustainability while doing well financially.
To illustrate the above mentioned strategy, the risk-management companies like the insurance sector are evaluating the impact of climate change. For the past three decades, the insurance industry reported that the companies spent 15-fold increase in the amount of money paid to the clients who were victims of extreme weather condition such as hurricanes, floods, wildfire, tornadoes and other forms of natural disaster. For example, Gore states that hurricane Katrina incurred 60 billion in insured losses.
Meanwhile, an innovative program of buying and selling emissions to reduce carbon dioxide has been adopted by the European Union. Other countries have also geared in this direction, such as Montreal Commodity Exchange in Canada, and Mumbai Commodity Exchange in India and in US, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). According to Gore, the World Resources Institute, municipalities like City of Oakland, California and the Universities like University of Oklahoma have recently joined CCX. Therefore, this illustrates that business ventures to improve the economy do not necessarily antagonize the environment.
Gore recognizes well enough the power of the developed countries when it comes to creating treaties and policies that will cause positive impact in addressing global warming. On the other hand, Sachs focused on the realities of the environmental issues on the third-world and developing countries. Beyond the ramifications of natural disasters to several industries in rich countries, the agricultural production and productivity in less developed countries are worsened. Sachs cited that migration from land will be a growing phenomenon while shanty towns will be exposed to erosion and destruction. Also, only those with physical and economic capacity can fight off illnesses. Sachs further asserts that the effects of global warming will definitely be uniform all over the world but this will disproportionately affect the socially weak and powerless.
The environmental problems brought by floods and other calamities cause toxic and damaging effects to peoples health. According to Sachs, well-to-do people are not exception to this but the low-income group suffers most with unavoidable diseases like diarrhea, infections, injuries, and premature death since they cannot immediately afford to address their needs.
Sachs mentions of subsistence rights include. These are what the individuals need to develop as living beings, like clean air, drinkable water, elementary health provision, adequate nourishment and clothing, and shelter. And this entails for the state to also make provisions in order for these rights to be realized. Therefore, subsistence rights perform in three levels of obligation for state and other powerful actors according to Sachs, first is to refrain from withdrawing such rights to people, second is to guarantee their own livelihood and third is to ensure restoration in the event of its loss.
Since the aspect of environment plays a key role in subsistence rights of the people, the policy that protects the livelihood overlaps with environmental conservation. Hence these two are closely related to ensure that decent living is granted to people most especially to the poor inhabitants.
While Gore talks of using the market capitalism and global participation to address the environmental problems, Sachs reiterated the subsistence rights of the people that should guide relevant environmental policies in order to avoid power play and economic competition that may stifle what is due for the disadvantaged sector in the population.
Relevance of environmental issues to food crisis
As concrete sample of Sachs point, food crisis violates the basic subsistence rights of the people. Looking at the causes of food crisis will bring back old issues of unprecedented play of power and economic competition.
According to Bellos and Bavieras Food Wars, the international press and academics declared that the era of cheap food has ended, and this was caused by the failure of the poorer countries to develop agricultural sectors and strains on the international food supply created by dietary changes in China and Indias expanding middle classes who were eating more meat. Speculation in commodity futures, the conversion of farmland into urban real estate, climate change, and the diversion of corn and sugarcane from food production to the production of agrofuels to replace oil are other reasons.
The interrelated causes of food crisis are the end result of the environmental problems these past decades. It started from the build-up of carbon dioxide emitted from highly industrialized cities that failed to practice proper environmental ethics. This created more natural calamities that affected most of the agricultural production in many countries. The food supply was affected. The food security issues were addressed differently by the key players in the world economy.
Huge land lease deals were said to be taking place in land-rich countries like Cambodia, Madagascar and Philippines. Food Wars says that some of these lands will be for food production and agrofuels. Hence, each country will have a decreasing agricultural productivity that will result to more food imports, a scenario that only speaks of higher price for basic food commodity and consequently hunger for those who cannot afford. Therefore, such economic undertaking violates the obligation of the state to ensure the realization of their subsistence rights.
The so-called political elites in land-rich countries seem too happy undertake such deals at the expense of their own countrys food security. Multimillion dollar leases are strong incentives like the one offered by the Chinese to the Philippine corporations. Again, as stated in Food Wars, this typically exhibits the power play of man against man using the environment.
The international food supply was mainly induced by the structural adjustment. Food Wars explains that this was imposed by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on over ninety developing and transitional economies for a twenty-year period beginning in the early 1980s.
The above mentioned scenario was supported by McMichael. He furthered that the structure and politics of the market are ultimately responsible for food crisis. Hence, it was not surprising that the crisis served as an opportunity for corporate and multilateral financial institutions to further their control and management of the global food system. Governments with other resources resorted to food import liberalization, price controls andor export controls on domestically produced food, and a global land grab has ensued when governments secure food supplies in other countries. World Food Crisis asserts that the bottom line of it all is that rising food prices indicates a more fundamental structural process at work, manifest in both famine and food riots.
In 2003-2005, 848 million people suffered from chronic hunger, an increase of six million from the 199092 figures of nearly 842 million. According to Food Wars, this was the worrisome apparent trend even before the recent surge in food prices. The future is not promising at all if this trend goes on in the advent of more increase in food prices.
But beyond the factors controlled by man, the UN Environment Program reported that there is a decline in water, land, air, plants, animals and fish stocks. Natural calamities like flood hit fifty-seven countries, including twenty-nine in Africa, nineteen in Asia, and nine in Latin America. According to World Food Crisis, harvests have been affected by drought and heat waves in south Asia, Europe, China, Sudan, Mozambique and Uruguay.
Meanwhile, in the midst of calamities and food crisis, five corporations control 90 percent of the international grain trade three countries produce 70 percent of exported corn, and the 30 largest food retailers control one-third of world grocery sales. As cited in World Food Crisis, this concentration of corporate power was a vision conveyed by the chairman of Cargill There is a mistaken belief that the greatest agricultural need in the developing world is to develop the capacity to grow food for local consumption. This is misguided. Countries should produce what they produce best and trade. Indeed, but the few powerful people in the country goes for the immediate reward and incentive of the land-lease deals that will only benefit them and leave the rest of the citizen in unjust hunger and famine.
Gore presented the dangers of global warming and several possibilities how it can be arrested through market capitalism and global initiatives. It may be noble and all-encompassing but there is a deeper problem in executing environmental policies. People who are in the rightful position to make a big change apparently lack moral responsibility to ensure the subsistence rights of their own people through sound and just environmental policies. These policies should not only address the peoples need but the genuine and effective means to save what is left of our environment so that there will be enough left for the next generations to come.
An average American in United States emits around 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year. Gore explains that the country constitutes 5 of the worlds population and produces around 25 of the worlds total gas emissions. If we truly want to save our planet, everyone should start with oneself. We should act out our hopes for the world and practice a way of living that does not violate a fellow human being.
Categories:
0 comments:
Post a Comment