"It's all about me"
While I am a Geography/Environmental Studies major, my true passion sides with the environment, so I was excited that I would be able to include certain environmental aspects into this week's blog. This week I walked over into the unfamiliar territory of south campus at UCLA. Next to the Ronald Reagan Medical Center is a cogeneration power plant, which is more efficient than regular power plants because it generates both electricity and usable heat.
The power plant on our very own campus sparked my interest to elaborate on the concepts of environmental management and neoliberalism we discussed in class this week. Neoliberalism is a free-market capitalism ideal that claims it is a viable solution to most economic, political, and social issues we face in the 20th and 21st centuries. Due to the ideal, for the past 30 years we have been answering our questions in terms of individual property rights and the free market. But there has been one question left unanswered for this time, how can we incorporate environmental issues into the free market?
While I personally don't agree with all the consequences that come as a result of neoliberalism, I am a strong advocate for the neoliberal approach towards environmental management. A neoliberal approach to environmental issues is to have a clear, responsible party for every action. This will hold large corporations and factories accountable for the pollution they create and that is then emitted into the air. By holding them accountable, it gives them only the responsibility to concern themselves with their affairs and the personal injury that they inflict on the wider community.
I am not advocating for every ideal within the neoliberal political philosophy, solely the aspects that contribute to the potential gains for environmental management. And in regards to neoliberalism carbon credits are an accurate example of privatized interest of environmental management. Carbon credits are a viable solution to the world's largest environmental issue, the exponential amount of carbon dioxide being released into the air with no accountability. The idea that air is communal and therefore it is extremely difficult to hold one party responsible revolves around Garret Hardin's argument in The Tragedy of the Commons. By providing limits on economic production on privatized properties and therefore limiting one's personal environmental damage, we can fix one of the largest problems society as a whole is facing in the 21st century.
-Britt
While I am a Geography/Environmental Studies major, my true passion sides with the environment, so I was excited that I would be able to include certain environmental aspects into this week's blog. This week I walked over into the unfamiliar territory of south campus at UCLA. Next to the Ronald Reagan Medical Center is a cogeneration power plant, which is more efficient than regular power plants because it generates both electricity and usable heat.
The power plant on our very own campus sparked my interest to elaborate on the concepts of environmental management and neoliberalism we discussed in class this week. Neoliberalism is a free-market capitalism ideal that claims it is a viable solution to most economic, political, and social issues we face in the 20th and 21st centuries. Due to the ideal, for the past 30 years we have been answering our questions in terms of individual property rights and the free market. But there has been one question left unanswered for this time, how can we incorporate environmental issues into the free market?
I am not advocating for every ideal within the neoliberal political philosophy, solely the aspects that contribute to the potential gains for environmental management. And in regards to neoliberalism carbon credits are an accurate example of privatized interest of environmental management. Carbon credits are a viable solution to the world's largest environmental issue, the exponential amount of carbon dioxide being released into the air with no accountability. The idea that air is communal and therefore it is extremely difficult to hold one party responsible revolves around Garret Hardin's argument in The Tragedy of the Commons. By providing limits on economic production on privatized properties and therefore limiting one's personal environmental damage, we can fix one of the largest problems society as a whole is facing in the 21st century.
-Britt
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