Introduction

The environment plays an important role in our life although many only realize the
importance of it until the natural resources faces depletion. The businesss operation is
much depends on the availability of the resources and has all this while treated the
resources as free and unlimited goods. The excessive use of scare resources has led to
depletion of resources as well as giving rise to pollution at the same time. Garrett Hardin
came up with a concept of The Tragedy of Commons whereby a shared resource in
which any given users reaps the full benefit of his/her personal use, while the losses are
distributed amongst all users. It is a situation where individuals or business economic
agents exploits scarce and rival common environmental resources for their own rational,
self-interested aims leading to over-production and the possible permanent depletion of
the resource for all. For instance, situation illustrating the concept includes overfishing
and destruction of the Grand Banks or congestion caused by driving cars. However, this
concept is counter argued by Adam Smiths Invisible Hand Theory where based on
rational self-interest, the proposed belief that human beings only make choices that will
promote their self-interest. Hence, it is held that decisions reached individually would be
the best decision for an entire society. However, in reality, many believes that his or her
own personal use of the commons have negligible effect, in fact, the cumulative effect
can be the gradual destruction of public domains, making everyone worse off.
Justification from Lawrence Summer
On 1991, chief economist of the World Bank, Lawrence Summer released an internal
memo which leaked to the environmental community with the titled whereby he thinks
that the bank should encourage more mitigation of dirty, polluting industries to less
developed countries. Besides that, there are also three justifications emphasized in
Lawrence Summers statement. The first factor is the issue of low wages, the cost of
living is higher in the America as compared to third world countries therefore the wages
paid in the America is certainly higher than third world country. By transferring the
pollution to third world country (building up factory in third world country), companies
could thereby lowering their operating cost by giving out lower wages. The second
justification ground of Lawrence Summer was the economic cost of pollution arising
from increased illness and death is least in the poorest countries. In third world countries
whereby the law and regulation regarding to environment issues are less strictly as
compared to developed country such as England and America, therefore the litigation
cost of the company might not be as high as the company were to set up factory in the
America and England. Moreover, Lawrence Summer also argued that the many of the
third world countries are currently under polluted and it is reasonable to shift the
pollution from those over polluted countries to the less one. Lastly, Lawrence Summer
also argued that since the poor are the poor, they cant possibly worry about the
environmental problems. According to Maslows hierarchy of needs, the basic need of
human is to get sufficient foods and place to live; the need for living in a healthier
environment is far more beyond than their basic needs according to their current
situation. He also implies that life of an American is worth much more than hundreds of
Africans.
In my opinion, I will view this issue from two perspectives. The Utilitarian view and the
Kantian view. From the utilitarian point of view, an action is moral if it generates the
greatest happiness to the greatest amount of people. The best way to measure the
happiness is through the cost and benefit analysis whereby action is taken based on
which alternatives maximize the benefit of all people.
From the action of transferring the pollution (build up factory) to the third world country,
it could create employment opportunities to the domestic citizens. At the mean time it
will also promote economic growth and development to the country because by doing so,
the home country is transferring the technology to host country, the GDP of the host
country will also increase which reflect a better economic growth. Besides, the action will
also help poor countries to solve their debts.
Ones must also consider the side effect of such action, inter alia exploitation of labors.
Problems such as workers work overtime without additional pay is happening quite
frequently in the contemporary world, the workers right might be exploit by the
employer in the sense that the employer did not provide a safe working environment for
them (workers). Environmental issues might also be very likely to rise because one of the
motives of transferring pollution is due to the requirement of regulations of domestic
government. There is a high chance that the company will explore the loophole in the
law and made severe environmental pollution. This will put the host country at the
disadvantage position because they might not be able to invest in pollution control
technology. Moreover, it will also cause heal issues in the society such as worker are
exposed to chemical substance without having any safety equipment. The health issue is
very important because it is very likely that the company wouldnt take care of the
environment. For example, when workers are sick because of environment pollution,
they are not able to work and this will lead to low production which lowers the
companys profit. If this is the case, the company would ruin the environment in third
world country and not getting any benefit from it.
In Kantians first maxim, he brings out the theory of do not do unto others if you don't
want others do unto you. Lawrence Summers is shifting out the issue of pollution in
their country to another country. For example, it is like forcing other people to accept
things that you wanted to throw (eg, rubbish). Obviously it is not moral. In second maxim,
he also emphasize that do not use people as a mean to an end. In this case, it obvious
that Lawrence Summer is using the people in third world countries as a mean to shift out
the pollution so that the pollution will not rise in the origin country.
There are few examples that are a line with Lawrence Summers statement and obviously
the ending of each of it was not creating happiness to greatest amount of people. The
first incident is the Bhopal Disaster which is also known as the biggest disaster ever
happen in the history. The American company set up factory and operates in India, due to
the insufficient action take regarding to safety care issues, the incident has caused
almost 8,000 people died and more than 550,000 people injured as a result of gas
leakage. Another example is the Mitsubishi Company in Bukit Merah, Malaysia. In this
case, the project to extract rare earth had made residents in nearby area exposed to the
danger of chemical and cause severe long term effect such as cancer, infant death and
lead poisoning.
I am sure that human being is not only the living creature in the earth; certainly there are
animals and plants in the earth too. While we are actively debating about humans right
to a livable environment, we should also consider animals right to live in a livable
environment. This is because if we do not care about animals right, we will also be
affected (as discussed above). Another issue worth mention is regarding to our future
generation, if we were to pollute now, how about them? Will they be able to live in a
heavily polluted environment? Do the conditions allow them to continue living? Therefore
we (or companies) should treat the environment very carefully as it was not given to you
by your parents, it was loaned to you by your future generations.

Malaysia Environmental Quality Act 2007