by: Rene B. Azurin
(This column appeared in Business World, top of page 5, on Thursday, April 19, 2007. You may address reactions to it directly to the BW editor at editor@bworld.com.ph)

Were an updated edition of the Old Testament ever to be issued by its anonymous authors, it is to me quite conceivable that the Almighty’s prime directive would be transformed from “Go forth and multiply” to “Go green and prosper”. It does not, obviously, make any sense for God to exhort the teeming billions already crammed into an overburdened paradise to multiply even more. On the other hand, it does make sense for God to command mankind to preserve the natural environment and, in the process, flourish and prosper. God would surely have noticed by now that man seems stupidly bent on spoiling the only Eden he’s got.

Indeed, God might have already released this new directive, version 2.0, to at least some people who are now actively and aggressively spreading the word to save the planet. Earth Day, to be celebrated worldwide for the 37th time this Sunday (April 22), is one of the main consciousness-building attempts to focus attention on the already precarious state of our world. One of its highlights here will be a Misa Angelorum at high noon at the Manila Cathedral where, presumably, God can infuse all the faithful with the awareness that there is absolutely no time to dilly dally about going green.

We can take seriously the assessment – made by many reputable scientists – that Earth has indeed reached “the tipping point” and adopt the measures necessary to step back from that critical edge, or ignore it and risk toppling headlong into what some scientists feel would be an unbrakeable tumble towards extinction-level climate change.

But what should those measures be? Optimally, these would be those that cut drastically the pollution of our surroundings to tolerable levels without being unduly restrictive of activities that fuel economic growth. As an unrepentant disciple of Adam Smith, my own preference would be for using only market transaction-type approaches but the difficulty of finding effective solutions to environmental pollution problems along those lines has always been what economists call “externalities” or what I would refer to as “third party effects”. In the classic example, a manufacturer who discharges noxious gases into the atmosphere (or dumps toxic waste into a river) causes harm to bystanders – third parties – in the neighborhood. If this polluter is not charged the full cost of cleaning up his mess or compensating the third parties for the harm he has caused them, he and his customers get a free ride from the fact that the price at which the products are bought and sold do not truly reflect the full cost of making them.

It was obviously simpler in the early days when, were Adam to dump his toxic waste upstream, Eve (the only other occupant then of Eden) could directly assess him the full price to compensate her for the dirtying his dumping causes to her washing downstream. Unfortunately, the situation today is enormously more complicated because there are now millions of people downstream from any dumper of, say, mercury or lead or cyanide and it is hardly practical for the polluter to visit every single one of them and pay compensation or, alternatively, for every single one of the sufferers to trek to the doorstep of the polluter and demand such compensation.

Moreover, all six billion human beings are now effectively the affected third parties when carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, and other such gases are discharged into the atmosphere. Not just every single being on this planet but all our future descendants as well are potentially harmed by the effect such emissions create on global temperature. In cases like these, how in God’s name would the right price to charge polluters be even arrived at? Adam and Eve at least had the added advantage of not being capable, even if they tried, of permanently damaging an Eden that God saw fit to provide substantial powers of regeneration. That, however, is no longer true and we are now collectively fully capable of ruining our world beyond its capacity to repair itself within a period that will allow our species to continue. That brings up the interesting question: what value should we place on the human race?

We in this country have hardly been image models for environmental responsibility. In and around Metro Manila, the pollutants we spew into our air (70% from our vehicles) have so raised the suspended particulate level that it now hovers in some places at around 300 times the acceptable health standard. Just here in the metropolis, we generate a mind-boggling 6,200 tons of solid waste every day, much of which is collected by the favored contractors of local government officials and disposed of in (illegal) open dumpsites that throw off copious amounts of the greenhouse gas methane. The garbage (approximately half of which is common household trash) that finds its way into our streams and rivers has already caused the biological demise of sixteen of the major river systems in the country, including all five of those in Metro Manila. And, today, only 6% of our country’s original forests remain, the consequence of uncontrolled expansion of settlements to upland areas, kaingin, and indiscriminate logging by politically-connected businessmen. Indisputably, we need to change.

Market measures alone cannot fully address the environmental problem, particularly when the prospect of human extinction effectively makes the real cost of certain types of pollution astronomical. But, certainly, we must act to modify the structure of market incentives currently prevailing in the country. One way is to impose appropriate specific taxes on polluting emissions and activities to make polluters actually pay what might approximate the full cost of the harm they cause the community. Another is to introduce incentives for the use of “green” technologies to spur investment in environmentally cleaner ways of conducting human affairs. These will permit rational self-interest to automatically drive everyone towards environmentally responsible behavior.

But that would not be enough. We also need strong regulatory action. It is crucial for our government authorities, acting on behalf of all third parties, to determine and set the proper mandatory limits on various kinds of environmentally destructive activities and to enforce regulations strictly and objectively. For this, we need deep and enlightened thinking and committed environmental leadership that, hopefully, can be kept beyond the reach of traditional vested interests.

The preservation of our habitat is a choice that rational men should not have to argue about. Unfortunately, even rational men with a me-and-now attitude cannot help but contest environmental preservation measures. With a me-and-now attitude, one can be remarkably cavalier about polluting the air or cutting trees or dumping toxic waste or wiping out whole species of plants and animals.

Attitudes have to change and an awareness of our shared past and our common future is possibly the key. This is what events like Earth Day try to achieve. Go green is no longer just a college cheer. It may be God’s new commandment.