The Environment: Whose Responsibility? It has been only in the last few decades that the global community has realized that we have the responsibility to deliver a clean and peaceful planet to our future generations. It has been only in the past few years that the global community has begun to take this realisation seriously and move from theoretical commitments to the actual implementation of corrective measures to change polluting and destructive practices and activities.
As we move into a new century, and millennium, the global community is running out of time.
Clearly the implementation of measures to achieve sustainable development must be increased and accelerated. This is especially the case with respect to preventing the release of toxic substances and hazardous waste generation, without which sustainable development will remain merely a dream. taken from greenpeace.org
So somebody has to take responsibility for the environment and try to push for global sustainability. Who should it be? There are four main groups of people who could be held accountable for the environment : The natural assumption may be that the governments of the world have responsibility for the environment.
Surely we put our trust in our governments in the hope that they will appreciate the true value of the environment and that they will deal effectively with any problems that may damage it. Labour policies say they have “put the environment at the heart of our policy-making since the General Election, fulfilling our commitment to protect and enhance the environment which is spelt out in Clause IV of our constitution.
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However Greenpeace fel they too often forget that “simply because something is profitable, it is not necessarily right. Yet this is the working assumption in almost all big decision-making by governments and business.” hinting that governments forget about the environment and sustainable development because a business is economically successful.
“Today many politicians treat entrepreneurs as heroes, and business people seem to expect a free ride when it comes to creating risks. GE crop trials are typically uninsured. A sausage manufacturer whose factory poisons a river may expect a punitive fine but the GE venture capitalist who creates a continent-wide ecological disaster will probably get off free.”
So this is the fight going on between pressure groups and the government. I feel that the government has a very large part to play in aiming for sustainable development. Surely nothing can be done for the environment without the government’s consent, support and even funding. As voters for the election winner and as taxpayers we expect the government to put into practice such policies as the preservation of green belts, and the protection of national parks, beaches and mountains. We also expect governments to take action against any business or individual who breaks laws set up to protect the environment, or regulations concerning the amount of waste they may produce.
A recent summit was centred upon the need to convince the USA, which produces much of the world’s greenhouse gases to make serious efforts to bring down the amount of greenhouse gases given off. The summit did not achieve that aim, and many believe that the British government was at fault for not giving the other delegates more reason to agree to the new measures. This shows how much the government really is responsible for the environment and how much difference what they do or don’t do really makes.
The tiny changes that the few people who are in power make to environmental policies can result in a big difference when translated to the national or even worldwide scale. In the same way a small change for each individual, such as recycling any recyclable goods, can end up making a huge difference when everyone in the country does it. If everybody was held accountable for the difference they make to the environment, and we all simply had to leave our environment no better or worse then when we came to it there would not be such a deterioration in standards.
Of course this is nearly impossible to do and it is inevitable that some people will care more for the environment than others. However I feel that if more effort could be made by the media to alert people to the way the environment is going then people would be more likely to do their bit. If people are not reminded of the things going on in their world then they will often try -and succeed -to forget. But then perhaps this is the job of the government – to train people to inform the public of the environment’s state and perhaps to do promotions on the television or other media.
There is always the worry that the public will become immune to shocking statistics or terrible photos if there is an overkill in the media, and often enough, unless there is a particular crisis going on, the environment is considered old news. The public will probably never get motivated by themselves to do something but everybody does have a share of responsibility to the environment.
Remember! This is just a sample.
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