Question

The Cost of Economic Growth In Chapter 7: The Environment – Part II, Hite and Seitz (2016) discuss the existing tension between development and the environment. Development brings economic growth as well as social and environmental changes. To a developing country, economic growth may be of a higher priority than the consequences to the long-term health of its citizens or its environment. On the other hand, poverty can also harm the environment such as how searching for land to farm contributes to deforestation. Do wealthy nations using the labor of developing nations have responsibilities to the people and environment of that country? Why or why not? Be sure to use examples of existing companies to support your response.

Answer 1

Yes. Since wealthy nations use resources such as labor or other natural resources of a developing nation, they need to ensure that the developing nations are able to develop in a sustainable fashion and not indiscriminately use these resources in a fashion that ruins the country. Besides this, the degradation of the environment has an effect that crosses international borders. Climate change and global warming affect all parts of the globe, and not the only places where environmental degradation has taken place.

The prime example of irresponsible and indiscriminate resource extraction is the diamond and other mining companies that began operating in several African nations in the second half of the twentieth century. The companies paid extremely low wages to the native population to work within the mines and extracted the natural resources and sold them. The companies also applied pressure on the politicians, which led to civil unrest and conflict. The infamous conflict diamonds are a result of these unethical and inhuman malpractices, which lead to utter devastation of the developing nations, while the companies profited off them.