Be sure to read the guidelines carefully and verify your assignment meets the guidelines and is the correct format/has all required components.

Lectures, discussion and assignments for this course have encouraged you to think through and develop perspectives on an array of difficult ethical and political questions. For this assignment, select three questions from the list below, explaining your perspective, rationale and a concrete example that shaped your perspective. Each response should be 200-250 words (typed, single-spaced, 10pt font). All responses must fit on one page. Paste the questions you are answering (with their number) before each response. Your name, student ID #, and section time should be at the top. Printed copies are due at the start of class on Wednesday, November 28.

Points will be given for:

1) clearly stating your perspective, (10pts)

2) explaining your reasoning (saying why or why not), (20 points)

3) providing an example that influenced your thinking (with proper citations), (10pts) and

4) using clear and grammatically correct writing. (10pts)

Questions (choose THREE):

Should corporate executives be held criminally responsible (potentially going to jail) for negligence that results in human and environmental injuries?
Should laws restrict new hazardous facilities in communities that are already toxic “hot spots”?
Should laws restrict “revolving doors” in which government officials go to work for companies they previously oversaw or regulated?
How should local governments deal with industrial facilities in their jurisdiction, strategizing the need for jobs, environmental protection, and tax revenue generation?
Should employees be obligated to whistle-blow if they observe illegal, unethical, or dangerous behaviors?
Do labor unions make plants and communities safer?
Are health disparities evidence of injustice?
Should financial compensation for deaths and injuries be allocated to injured individuals (or their families), local governments, or community organizations (churches, etc.)?
Should gag orders be allowed after a legal settlement of an environmental case?
Should politicians have a role in selecting and prioritizing research to be used in environmental and health policy?
Should laws require hazardous industrial facilities (refineries, chemical plants, etc) be set back more than 200 feet from homes and schools?
Should the US government increase funding for green chemistry and energy?
Should industrial chemicals (food additives, pesticides, flame retardants) be in use if their health impacts have not yet been assessed?
When scientific findings about the health effects of chemicals are uncertain, should policy err on the side of precaution?
Should the United States have stricter environmental regulation?

Sample response

Should the United States require individuals to reduce their carbon footprint?

In my view, the United States should pass laws that require individuals to restrict activities that produce carbon pollution. While some people may think this would undermine constitutionally-protected liberties, there is a clear precedent and reasons for laws that prevent people from doing things that harm others. We are required to stop at stop signs, for example, and there are bans on smoking in most public places. Failing to curb carbon pollution also harms others, though sometimes across great distances or time. The activities of people living in the United States create disproportionately large amounts of carbon pollution, with particularly harsh impacts on people living in the Arctic, on islands, and on low-lying coastlines. In the United States, carbon pollution is contributing to extreme weather events, and is expected to create increasing water scarcity -- negatively impacting current populations as well as future generations. Films we saw in class documenting the impacts of climate change on Bangladesh influenced my thinking on this question. It seems particularly unfair for people who are already among the poorest in the world to be impacted by pollution caused by people living much better and very far away. (192 words)

Sea level rise and melting glaciers (both associated with climate change) are already causing regular, sometimes permanent, catastrophic floods in Bangladesh, and conditions are expected to worsen in coming years. Robert Glennon (2017), writing in Scientific American, highlights that the people of Bangladesh are greatly affected by such changes while not being significant contributors to the cause of the problem. The country as a whole emits just 0.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Glennon 2017). “ (270 words)

Reference:

Glennon, Robert. “The Unfolding Tragedy of Climate Change in Bangladesh.” Scientific American Blog Network. Accessed November 14, 2018. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-unfolding-tragedy-of-climate-change-in-bangladesh/.