Ideas For Democracy:  Goal #11

Direct science and technology toward the public good and establish a permanent system of environmental protection, which means protection and preservation of our primary economic resources.

 

Citizens who want real democracy will actively support this policy and vote for trustworthy candidates who actively support this policy.

 

IFD - policy:  Space exploration projects funded by the government will be put on hold or suspended -- with necessary exceptions -- until NASA and the scientific community accomplishes the following public good projects on a non-profit or limited profit basis:

            A)  Desalinate sea water for less than 5 cents a gallon.

            B)  Capture carbon dioxide and methane and sequester them in solid or other stable and low-reactive material. 

            C)  Devise an effective method for removing trash from the sea.

            D)  Devise an effective method for removing trash from rivers and lakes.

            E)  Devise an effective method for removing trash from near space, Earth orbit.

 

Environmental Protection:

The essential strategy is the paired policy requirements of Total Cost Accounting and Absolute Liability.

 

Total cost accounting means that any maker of a product is required by law to include all of the costs of making and using the product, including any and all risk of harm to persons or the natural environment.  This is what it means to run the government like a business.  The taxpayers will not tolerate the attitude that if someone else -- a private business entity -- causes damage, the taxpayers will pay for the restoration of losses.  This policy is rejected because it is the same thing as having the government subsidize environmental pollution and private damage to that property which is necessary for public health and cannot be privately owned:  air, safe drinking water, agricultural soils, minerals and plant and animal life in the ecological system that supports life on Earth.  The risks of harm from chemicals that are intended for restricted and controlled use must also be included in the total cost of the product.  The scientific principle that rules here is There is no such thing as a cause that has only one effect.  The mistaken belief that a chemical product has only one effect is the root cause of pervasive environmental harm caused by industrial activity.  The childlike viewpoint that a chemical can kill just one weed, or just a flea on a dog, or only the bad bacteria on a dinner plate is the source of humanity's self-destructive behaviors.  What we call "side effects" and "unintended consequences" must be addressed and paid for, by those who make a profit selling the product and those who buy it and use it.  Because we have a large body of scientific experience with the outcomes of industrial production, both "side effects" and "unintended consequences" can no longer be regarded as "unexpected" results.  Environmental harm is an outcome of industrial activity that is to be expected, and therefore the cost of such harm must be accounted for as a necessary and inescapable cost of producing and using the product.  The customers who purchase and use such products must pay for the harm the product causes because that is fair.  It is unfair for your neighbor to use a product that causes environmental damage and then expect you to pay for the damage.

 

Absolute Liability means that the harm caused by the product is the responsibility of the maker and seller of the product regardless of intervening events.  If a business entity makes profit by making a product that later causes personal injury or environmental harm, any allegation that the harm was caused by the carelessness or error of the consumer or any wholesaler or shipper or handler that was in possession of the product before the consumer shall be ineffective as a means for the manufacturer to escape responsibility for the harm caused.  The principle that governs is that any harm that occurs was caused by the chain of events that was initiated by the manufacturer.  The harm that occurred, however it occurred, could not have occurred if the chemical product was not manufactured in the first place.  The justice in the principle is not to blame or punish the manufacturer or the consumer who uses the product, but to activate and enforce the principle of total cost accounting.  So long as there is a risk of accidental injury or damage, or a risk of carelessness or mistake by a consumer, or a risk of misuse of the product, or improper storage or disposal of the product, THE ACTUAL COSTS OF ALL SUCH PROJECTED RISKS MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE WHOLESALE AND RETAIL COSTS OF THE PRODUCT.  The manufacturer must be allowed to maintain reserves to pay for the expected injuries and damages or purchase insurance to cover such expenses.  In any case, whatever legal means the maker uses to pay for any injuries or harm, the manufacturer and the consumers are absolutely liable to pay for the harm caused, and THE GOVERNMENT SHALL NOT PAY FOR ANY INJURY OR HARM THAT IS CAUSED BY A MANUFACTURED PRODUCT NO MATTER HOW ACCIDENTAL OR UNINTENDED IT WAS.  That is the obvious result of running the government like a business.  If a manufacturer responds to this legal principle by saying they will go out of business, then that is neither more nor less than the natural result of the operation of the free market.  If anyone wishes to argue that the taxpayers should be willing to pay for personal injuries and environmental harm caused by a corporation that made a profit on those injuries and that harm, and was possibly also caused by the behavior of a consumer or intervening possessor of the product, they can offer such arguments and they should be heard, so long as they pay for their own messes and do not expect their neighbors to pay for their messes.

 

Policy and program(s) that shall be implemented: 

1)  Remove all legal avenues of escape from responsibility:

We need to pass new laws that establish an iron-clad chain of legal liability that disarms and renders useless all forms of escape from legal liability.  Business entities have been practicing escape from the costs of their irresponsible behaviors, illegal behaviors, and incompetence since the beginning of time.  Lying and cheating are the oldest business practices in the world.  Among the most common "escape" practices are filing for bankruptcy, selling a business, or the most effective practice of breaking a business entity into separate parts of value and selling the different parts of a dissolving business entity to different buyers.  When the financial risk of liability is especially serious, those buyers of parts of an offending corporation will then re-sell parts of the parts of the dissolved business.  They usually do this after being advised by an attorney that the corporation has engaged in practices that cause human cancers, or that has caused extreme and irreparable pollution of natural resources.  Profiting corporations are the world's worst two-faced liars.  They whine about the difficulty of being in business and how government regulations and government "interference" in the operations of their business make it hard to make a profit, but they deceive and use and abuse the public by persistently wanting to treat the natural resources or air, water, and soil, and the rivers and the oceans, as though they are free supplies for corporations to use and poison in order to make a profit.  There is a legendary story about how Henry Ford responded when asked what the government could do to stop industry from polluting a river.  He allegedly said:  "Let them get all the water they want to use downstream."

 

2)  Extreme environmental protection and business liability:

The technological capacity of the United States of America shall be applied immediately to reduce greenhouse gases by 20%, in order to demonstrate to the people that we do have the capacity to exercise that level of control when that is the will of the people.  The technological capacity of the United States of America shall be applied immediately to remove solid waste and chemicals from rivers, lakes and oceans.  The technological capacity of the United States of America shall be applied immediately to reduce the acidity of the oceans, all of the oceans and major gulfs.  As necessary, programs for space travel, space exploration devices, and advanced weapons shall be suspended or postponed until the scientific community has demonstrated its capacity to perform these three environmental repair functions.  The governments in the United States together with the support of the scientific community shall demonstrate, within the next ten years immediately following the election that the people of the United States can adopt and meet a negative population target, meaning reduce the total population to a designated target number.  Business entities shall be required to practice total cost accounting, including the cost of recycling, or safe disposal or storage of any material made or used in their profit-earning enterprise.  Business entities shall have absolute liability for damage caused by their economic activities and the law shall provide for reaching back in time to assign responsibility to present actors.  The taxpayers shall not pay for any environmental repair of damage or injury caused by a business entity.