- there needs to be information which is quite complete for the comparison of capital for the controlling of environment and the benefits from which society will gain;
- there are efficient criteria, which is the mixture of the standards of marketing and the price, and the criteria in setting up the environmental standards.
Finally, the solving of the crisis of the environment is not only the economic problems (e.g. the promulgation of Green Tax) but also the political problem. If there are too strict standards, it may not be accepted politically. The people may criticize. The business world may be against it and react (by decreasing the investment in employee's wages or increasing the price so high that it causes people to be in trouble.) In a democracy, the politicians who plan the policy on environment do not usually like strict standards. There is no one being concerned about how much the standard and the policy on environment will be affected.
It is predicted that in the twenty-first century the green power group in developing countries will increase.
The movement will be in a wider scope and there will be the call for solving the problems down to the root.
This is because the environment problem is becoming serious while the reaction from the government is quite slow. It is because the government has the tendency not to have strict standard that they may have to be concerned with private business and the national economy.
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION
Among the rich countries, it is assumed that it is not so hard to solve environmental problems of the 21st century. These countries will compete with each other in improving the quality of their products. There is always the search for innovation, environmental innovation, in particular, is an important instrument in encouraging the progress of the industrial world. At present, the rich countries have already had the high potentiality of developing new technology for the production process with the regard for environmental quality.
The innovative analyst regards that the ability of industry in responding to the environmental problems is the main indicator if that kind of industry can compete at the world level. Those who want to succeed must integrate the main idea with the production system. It means the protection of the environment, solving the problem of pollution, increasing the efficiency in using natural resources and power. The strict standard of the environment will enhance the thinking of production method, which will benefit the environment.
At present, the governments of the industrial world, like Sweden, agree with "Environment Innovation
Ways". There is a conclusion in the latest report of the national environment that "The policy on environment of the Swedish government is very important in enhancing the modernity in industrial business sectors. The improvement of the environment has turned out to be the main factor in accelerating the competition in this industry."
This is the entire new western concept, which emphasizes "How to bring about Ecological Modernization."
It is the new concept on new environmental technology and every step is used for the industrial production process. However, there needs to be adaptation of the whole production structure, which needs systematic «environmental planning», and the adapting of world vision and the conscience of the environment of the people in every field. The concept of "Ecological Innovation" does not emphasize only the technology but also regards the importance of "Environmental management" which needs to be done in both the governmental and private sectors. This can be seen in countries like Sweden, Denmark, Holland and Germany, which are regarded as the leaders in "Environmental Innovation".
ENVIRONMENTALISM AND TECHNOLOGY
Wait a minute, you might say, it is environmentalism against technology, for isn't technology a fundamental source of environmental problems?
This has been the position of deep greens. In fact, some trace all environmental problems to the beginning of agriculture, arguing that it was the shift from hunter-gatherer to farming that created what they consider the human cancer consuming the globe. Even moderate greens can be anti-tech, reflecting both skepticism about capitalism and the counter cultural ideology that characterizes most environmental discourse.
Consider, for example, something as mainstream, as the precautionary principle, which holds that no new technology be introduced until it can be demonstrated to have no harmful environmental impacts. Taken at face value, this embeds within it a strong preference for "privileging the present" - that is, attempting to ban or limit technological evolution - for the potential implications of all but the most trivial technological innovations can-not be known in advance.
Positioning environmentalism against technology, however, has its problems. For one, it misunderstands the nature of complex cultural systems. These inevitably evolve, generally towards greater complexity; consider, for example, how much more complex international governance, information networks, or financial structures are now than just a few years ago.
And technologies are evolving rapidly as well, particularly in the three areas that promise to impact environmental systems the most: biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology. The first will, over time, give us design capabilities over life; the second will let us manipulate matter at the molecular level; the third will change how we perceive and understand the world within which the first two are accomplished.
Moreover, developing such capabilities will give the cultures that do so significant competitive advantages over those that opt for stability rather than technological evolution. There are historical examples of this process
- for example, China, from roughly the 11th to the 14th centuries. At that time, China was the most technically advanced society, but for a number of reasons its elite chose stability over the social and cultural confusion that development and diffusion of technologies (such as gunpowder and firearms) might have caused. Northern Europe, however, followed a more chaotic path, including the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, which favored technological evolution. The result: Eurocentric, not Chinese, culture forms the basis of today's globalization.
Applying this lesson to current conditions raises the question of whether deep-green opposition to certain technological advances, especially genetically modified organisms, could halt technological advance. Some societies -
Europe, in particular - may choose stasis over evolution. But biotech is such a powerful advance in human capabilities that other societies - especially developing countries with immediate needs that biotech can address - are not likely to forego its benefits. And to the extent, their cultures become more competitive by doing so, they may come to dominate global culture.
So is the answer then to simply give up and let technology evolve, as it will? Not at all. In fact, the essential problem with an ideological opposition to technology is that it prevents precisely the kind of dialog between the environmentalist and technological discourses required to create a rational and ethical anthropogenic earth. For technologies are not unproblematic, and their evolutionary paths are not preordained; rather, they are products of complex and little-known social, cultural, economic, and systems dynamics, it is important that they be questioned and understood.
The challenge is thus not unthinking opposition, or maintenance of ideological purity, or even meaningless repetition of ambiguous phrases such as "precautionary principle." It is far more demanding. It is to learn to perceive and understand technology as a human practice and experience, and to help guide that experience in ways that are environmentally appropriate.
BUT I WANT TO WORK ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUFF!
One of the horrible existential challenges of being a student is that, in most cases, one must at some point leave school and begin work, presumably in an area for which one has been training these many years. For those reading this column, the area of interest is likely environmental, usually expanded these days to include sustainability. Put bluntly, the relevant questions are likely to be "How do I do well and what is the job market like?" Recognizing that planning your career on the basis of a 750-word column is probably not a great idea, here are some thoughts while you hit the books. First, the good news. There are plenty of opportunities to do great things: to help your employer (be it a private firm, government, or NGO), help the world, and feed yourself. Now, the bad news. Most of these opportunities are disguised, most have nothing to do with environment as currently taught and thought about at most schools, many of the opportunities have yet to be invented, and almost any worthwhile job will require that you develop it yourself, from inside.
To begin with, traditional environmental jobs that is, those based on current regulatory and policy structures, primarily cleanup and end-of-pipe emissions control will be with us for a long time, especially in developing countries. They are necessary. But this field is not growing, offers few intellectual challenges, and will have little to do with solving the larger problems of the anthropogenic world albeit improving health significantly in developing countries. So if you really want to help the environment in the broader sense - perturbed climatic and oceanic systems; anthropogenic carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and hydrologic system changes; biosphere disruptions - this is not the place for you.
The next step up is a position in the "sustainability industry." Superficially, at least, such jobs, which are frequently with niche consulting firms, are broader in scope and offer more intellectual opportunities. But caution is in order. The term "sustainability" has now grown to be so politically correct, and at the same time flown so far beyond mere ambiguity, that there is no substantive content to much of this work. In too many cases, it now amounts to a somewhat patronizing, highly ingrown dialog within a small circle of friends that tend to regard themselves as the great and the good, and spend a lot of time reinforcing one another's mental models.
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