CASE 7.2 Poverty and Pollution. Writing Assignment 3

Name:
Professor’s Name:
Course:
Due Date:
Poverty and Pollution
For a long time now, big businesses have been at war with the environment. Businesses have been victorious for some time now, but the environment has been trying to fight back as well. Pitting the environment versus big businesses has helped expose the rot in humanity, which appears to be concerned with more profits albeit at the expense of its future. In Brazil, the business versus the environment war led to the creation of the valley of death. In the valley of death, people lived in dilapidated conditions and respiratory diseases were rampant. One way or one value that leads to the creation of such places is self-centeredness or selfishness. In a selfish community, people do not care about their neighbors or the repercussions of their actions. In such communities, money is the chief concern for individuals and businesses. The valley of death was the price people in Brazil had to pay because businesses were chasing after profits. When a society develops a money-oriented attitude towards everything, everything is given a price including the environment.
Through selfish eyes and a money-oriented attitude, people like Lawrence Summers see it fit to offer suggestions to have third world countries be more polluted in the spirit or for the sake of development. For a person like Summers, everything in the world is fair game, including the environment. However, this should not be the way to view the world. Dirty industries should not be moved to poorer countries. The Global Policy Forum (2019) notes that “the international agenda often focuses on broad-based concerns of environmental degradation such as desertification, climate change, and air pollution.” It continues to note that there are more pressing matters because “issues of environmental degradation tend to be more localized and immediate.” Examples offered include reduced soil fertility, reduction in crucial economic activities like fishing, and the disappearance of natural resources. Adow (2013) provided details of Lake Chad noting that it has “depleted to 1/5th of its original area and is expected to disappear by the end of the century if nothing is done to protect it.” Such a resource provides the local people with livelihood, and its depletion means many people will be plunged into the depths of poverty. Lake Chad’s disappearance is as a result of environmental degradation and moving dirty industries to the poorer and less-polluted areas will not offer any solutions to the issues in these countries but will lead to more problems.
Development in the world has often happened at the expense of another thing. The statement “pollution is the price of progress” was coined to justify development at the expense of the environment. Well, this statement and others that mirror the same thought are flawed. With regard to such a statement, progress means depletion of natural resources. What is often ignored is the fact that the poor are the ones who suffer or pay the price of progress. In Brazil’s valley of death, the poor are the ones suffering from respiratory diseases a...