College of Business Administration

Business Management and the Natural Environment

Discussion Questions for October 27, 1998

1) "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?

2) "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?

3) "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?

4) 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?

5. "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?

6. "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?

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