MODULE 3: Benefits and burdens

 AGENDA

1. Recap environmental racism
2. Peter Wenz, "Just Garbage"
3. Prepare for debate

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Racial and economic disparities in Dallas

EPA Toxic Releases Inventory LINK

Best Neighborhood LINK
Look at race and income

Cole and Foster recap: to show there is environmental racism we have to show ....

1. There is a racial disparity 
2. AND the racial disparity was caused by racism
• Blatant, intentional, PIBBY
• OR "Subtle and structural"

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Peter Wenz, "Just Garbage" (2001) -- reading here

Some say all the disparities and motives are economic.  Wenz's response:

• Doubts it's all economic--thinks there is environmental racism
• But even if  it were all economic, there would still be an underlying injustice
• What's the injustice?

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Principle of Commensurate Burdens and Benefits (PCBB)

"Other things being equal, those who derive benefits should sustain commensurate burdens." (p. 446) 

• Commensurate=appropriate, proportional

Intuitions that support PCBB

• Benefit: receiving money
• Burden: working
• Fair!

• Benefit: owning something
• Burden: having tort liability
• Fair!

• Benefit: executive salary (earning $150,000 per minute--Jeff Bezos) 
• Burden: working hard 
• incommensurate because he can't be working that hard

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Exceptions to PCBB

"Exceptions prove the rule by the fact that justification for any deviation from the commensuration of benefits and burdens is considered necessary." (p. 446)

• Benefit: inheriting wealth
• Burden: none for inheritor
• justification:  the person who worked for wealth has the burden of working and the benefit of bequeathing

• Benefit: giving gift 
• Burden: none for the receiver
• justification: the person who worked for wealth has the burden of working and the benefit of giving

• Benefit: receiving unemployment compensation
• Burden: none
• justification: good for the society, others

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Applications to environmental issues

• Benefit: high consumption of products in wealthy neighborhood
• Burden: hazards in other neighborhoods
• Violates PCBB!

• Benefit: affluent countries have a lavish lifestyle
• Burden: garbage and recycling shipped to poor countries
• Unfair!

• Benefit: present people drive, fly, etc., emit a lot of greenhouse gases
• Burden: future people live in a hotter world
• Unfair!

• Benefit: present people draw water out of aquifers
• Burden: future people have water shortages
• Unfair!

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Objection to Wenz

"Free Market Approach"

The market determines where hazards are. People pay more to live in clean neighborhood.   High costs are the burden they carry.

Wenz: Buying your way out of burdens is not fair when the burdens are very basic and vital

• Benefit: being a citizen  
• Burden: having to be conscripted in time of war 
• Can't pay someone else

• Benefit: being a citizen 
• Burden: jury duty 
• Can't pay someone else

• Benefit: having a child.  
• Burden: carrying it and giving birth.
• Can't pay someone else just to avoid the discomfort

"The major problem with this free market approach is that it fails to accord equal consideration to everyone's interests. Where basic or vital goods and services are at issue, we usually think equal consideration of interests requires ameliorating inequalities of distribution that markets tend to produce." (p. 450)

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What should we do to comply with PCBB?

The LULU point system

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Debate