Note: this is not my Unit 6 post. This is just me finding a place to share what I read.
I read this in my econ class, and I got so frustrated. So, I decided to share it here, hoping that sharing it would help me deal with the emotions.
“The poorer countries of the world confront tragic choices. They cannot afford drinking water standards as high as those the industrial countries are accustomed to. They cannot afford to close their pristine areas to polluting industries that would introduce technical know-how and productive capital and that would earn urgently needed foreign exchange. They cannot afford to bar mining companies from their unexploited regions. Nor can they afford to impose antipollution requirements on these companies that are as strict and expensive as those in richer industrial countries. They should always realize that environmental protection measures are financed out of the stomachs of their own people; the multinationals cannot be made to pay for them.”
Robert Dorfman, “An Economist’s View of Natural Resources and Environmental Problems,” in Robert Repetto (ed.), The Global Possible, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1985, 67–76.
Hi Fernanda,
Yes it is a sickening reality. Business models need to be changed and it is mind-blowing to me that they are not already being changed at a rapid rate when there is so much work to be done, but instead business models are made to focus on how to just collect more and more money when they could be focused on creating new systems of clean energy, reducing waste/pollution and higher quality of life for workers, as well as creating products to last rather than products that need to be re-bought months later.