College of Business Administration

1) “As senseless as it is to create a packaging that lasts four hundred years to keep on a shelf for two months a product that we eat in two minutes, the most troubling and serious waste problem we face is one that we rarely see.”
How does our “linear economic system” affect the production of pollution?

2) “With spit, polish, technology, and enough landfills, we can stop releasing pollutants into the environment.”
Is this a logical and effective approach?

3) “The logical response to our current predicament would be to design or redesign manufacturing systems so that they do not create hazardous and biologically useless waste in the first place.”
How is recycling different from pollution prevention?

4) Biologically speaking, these solvents, fungicides, pesticides, and refrigerants are waste from the very moment they are manufactured. They cannot be incorporated into the life cycle of any organism on earth. They are not biologic, but ‘toxilogic.”
If these products cause so much damage to the environment, why are we still using them? Are there any alternatives?

5) According to Paul Hawken, green fees/taxes on non-renewable resources would encourage the use of alternative renewable sources of energy, such as wind, water, and solar radiation.
Are green fees the answer? Is a twenty-year plan appropriate? How do establishing green fees compare to regulations?

6) Would the creation of utilities such as pasture, salmon, and oil utilities be a realistic means of controlling over-consumption and over-exploitation?

7) “And here I find great distinction between the faith of the Indian and the white man. Indian faith sought harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings. In sharing, in loving and everything, one people naturally found a due portion of the thing they sought, while, in fearing, the other found need of conquest.” -Standing Bear
Does this perspective occupy the moral high ground?

8) "The logical response to our current predicament would be to design or redesign manufacturing systems so that they do not create hazardous and biologically useless waste in the first place." -- Paul Hawkin, Pg. 49
How is recycling different from pollution prevention?

9) "Hazardous wastes are the result of a linear system in which the end products of resources and energy inputs are neither cycled nor returned." -- Paul Hawkin, Pg. 38
How does our "linear economic system" affect the production of pollution? What is the real cost of inexpensive products in the current linear system?

10) "To establish a twenty-year time frame to work toward these objectives [establishing green fees] would be the most dynamic and stimulative economic program the United States and the world could ever embark upon." -- Paul Hawkin, Pg. 182
Is Hawkin's strategy as stated above convincing? Is this a viable option? Why or why not?

11) Hawkins argues that the solution to the commons dilemma is to establish a utility that would operate independently of the specific users of the common so that income is maximized.
How would implementing Hawkin's concept of the commons effect our own in-class commons?

12) "Although we're all to blame, corporations are often perceived to be the worst environmental offenders. With their vast resources, their access to capital and labor, businesses seem to have an almost godlike power to destroy the natural world. But they also have a godlike power to create a better world." -- Keeping Your Company Green, Stefan Bechtel
Who is responsible for creating / preventing pollution?

13) "We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's graves, and his children's birthright is forgotten." -- The Betrayal of the Land, Chief Seattle, Pg. 53
What constitutes our natural environment and are we betraying it?