Growing numbers of people are beginning to realize that capitalism is the uncontrollable force driving our ecological crisis, only to become frozen in their tracks by the awesome implications of this insight.
—Kovel
The environment and ecology of the planet earth is necessary for the provision of specific factors such as breathable air, habitable conditions, and the ability to sustain life, which are necessary for humanity to survive and flourish. The interaction between the environment, society, and technological aspects of our endeavors is essential in understanding our role as stewards of planet earth. Temperatism as an ideology promotes the value, which supports harmony between humanity and the natural environment.
Over the past decade, there has been a greater degree of challenge as to the rightness of industrialization without recourse to questioning our responsibility to support organized and active participation in environmental stewardship. In the past businesses engaged in large-scale industrial projects to manufacture products that would solve societal or political issues, with little consideration as to the environmental impact of such technology, or indeed the subsequent cost of human activity on the wider environment, not least the sustainability of plant and animal life. Our focus on consumption and materialism, as well as the pursuit of growth at all costs has come into conflict with the need to preserve and conserve natural resources.
For a long time in the West prosperity was taken for granted, growth was and always would be, and we would continue to enjoy the riches that the earth provided. As a result organizations and politicians ignored the damage that was being done, is being done, to the wider environment. In our pursuit of the good life, we have plundered the good and destroyed life in the natural world; we have disturbed the natural order and failed to faithfully and sustainably manage nature. Prosperity and harmony with nature is possible, but we have yet to learn how to achieve one without failing at the other. Even today as ice shelves break away, sea levels rise, oceans fill with plastic, and the tipping point for temperature rises gets ever closer, we still fail to take responsibility for the external costs of our actions. Along with the eradication of global poverty, the restoration of balance between man and the environment are the two biggest challenges facing humanity today.
Since we are social creatures, doing things differently, changing to such an extent means that we have to go outside group norms. Don’t believe me? The terms Tree Hugger, eco-warrior, and nature loving hippy have for a long time been used as insults and denote that the person acting with a belief structure that puts the environment first is in some way uncivilized. We still cringe slightly at the do-gooders who wrap their food up with beeswax-covered paper instead of plastic food wrap and feel that those who choose to eat organic food are in some way judging themselves as being better than the rest of us minions who buy bulk from the local Walmart. Even those organizations that are pursuing green and environmentally friendly agendas want to avoid focusing on the holistic aspect of protecting Mother Nature with “green agendas” and “environmental impact studies” to wrap their actions up in more acceptable business language of sustainability, Plan A, and corporate social responsibility. God forbid that these organizations should say that they care about the planet or care about people. That said, there is an acknowledgment that
environmental issues which constitute a dimension of corporate social responsibility (CSR), have become important concerns not only for environmentalists but also for consumers, investors and society as a whole. The government, via regulations and subsidies, as well as consumers and investors, via their choice bias towards responsible companies, demonstrate the wide interest in environmental protection. Faced with these demands, companies that may not have felt concerned now find themselves obliged to respond to the demand for the creation of strategies and policies related to environmental protection. (Tebini et al. 2016)
Regardless of the mainstream acceptance of climate change, organizations still pollute, the climate change deniers continue to spread conspiracy theories, and dark forces in the business world continue to hide or try to explain away the real impact of their activities. A recent court case found agro-chemical company Monsanto, a manufacturer of weed killer Roundup, responsible for poisoning a caretaker, leaving him with terminal cancer. The company that owns Monsanto, German agri-giant Bayer, has however disputed the 2015 World Health Organization (WHO) and International Agency for Research on Cancer report findings, arguing that its products do not cause cancer. In a statement the company said: “Bayer is confident, based on the strength of the science, the conclusions of regulators around the world and decades of experience, that glyphosate is safe for use and does not cause cancer when used according to the label” and would “continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40 years history of safe use.” This response, which rejects scientific findings and instead relies on assertions that all is well, is not new. Whether it is tobacco companies hiding research findings that smoking kills, car companies cheating tests to bypass environmental regulations, or mining companies of various persuasions poisoning drinking water avoiding responsibility has a long and illustrious corporate history.
Relying on Our Ability to Fix What Is Broken
Human ingenuity has created technology, which has allowed us to harness natural resources and turned them into assets that are of significant value to our society. Indeed Tebini et al. (2016) argue that the “reduction of environmental impacts can represent a considerable investment for industrial companies; however, the gains in terms of efficiency, product differentiation, and access to new markets cannot be disregarded.” The changes toward green business practices have in part been driven by industry regulations, environmental laws, and, more recently, the concerns of the consumer as to the environmental impact of products. But the weakness of regulation and competition for scarce resources has meant that we are creating a natural disaster of global proportions. When the president of the United States pulls out of the first international agreement on climate change claiming it is a bad deal, and promoting an agenda of climate denial, it is difficult for an agenda which is focused on us taking responsibility for the environment to be taken seriously. The hostility toward regulation is endemic and failures that have been experienced in the financial market should serve as a warning of the potential problems that are being created in the environment because of a lack of robustness in regulating ownership and the use of natural resources. Take, for example, the current context of the environmental peril that our planet is in. If we don’t change the way we do things then our grandchildren will quite possibly face extinction. The problem is that we have accepted the truth of “plenty” and of not having to count the external costs of our actions for such a long time that the rules and expectations of 21st-century human culture, especially in the Western World, is currently stopping us from acting rationally in the best interests of our long-term survival.
There appears to be a misaligned faith in our ability to develop technology, which will deliver innovations, which will solve the problems with carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases. But technology alone will not solve the problem of excessive reliance on fossil fuels, nor will it help us to be less wasteful. Instead, like a person embarking on a journey to lose weight, we must change our attitude and behavior toward consumption and increase our understanding of enoughness if we are to become part of the change rather than expecting change to happen without our input. Too often we embrace technology, which helps us to become environmental friendly. However, because we “save” energy we find no reason to reduce our consumption and, instead, increase our expectations of what living standards are acceptable, leading to greater levels of energy consumption. “As many countries have adopted smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, national emissions have usually continued to rise despite the increase efficiency” (Wilkinson and Pickett 2010). For example, television sets have become more energy efficient. But rather than reducing energy consumption, we have bought bigger televisions and rather than having one television in a house, we now have a television in every room, in addition to extra gadgets such as digital television boxes, surround sound, Blu-ray players, and multimedia “on-demand” technology. The overall consumption of energy has therefore grown, even if the humble television set is more energy efficient than before.
Who Owns Nature?
The argument between environmentalists and economists over the issue of who has ownership of natural assets is a complex one. When someone creates something themselves it appears fair that they should own that which they have created, but what about something that is essentially “free” to those who come across it? Whether it is precious minerals, oil, water, or land, the assets that planet earth endows upon humanity for its use cannot be claimed to be the property of anyone, and whether they should be used for our consumption today or saved for the use of future generations, the questions of stewardship regarding natural assets isn’t an easy one to resolve. There are of course immediate problems of ownership of a natural resource. On the one hand, it can be argued that the companies that bottle water, drill for oil, or mine for minerals should be rewarded for taking something out of the ground. But what if, like Nestle, which is bottling 50 million gallons of water from 10 natural springs, which form part of the Sacramento municipal water supply, despite not having a valid permit in all the areas it pumps from and the state being drought-stricken. The water is sold to Nestle by the city-state at the same rate that the residents pay for it, and Nestle bottles it to make a profit. Although residents are facing water restrictions, and there is not being enough rainfall to replenish the aquifers, rivers, and lakes, the company is cavalier in its pursuit of profit. Indeed, during a major dispute in 2014, which led the plant being closed for 1 day, the former Nestle CEO was quoted as saying that water was not a fundamental human right. The situation and many other horror stories of environmental piracy turn the pursuit of profit into a simple case of plunder. From a Temperatist perspective, a sustainability perspective rejects the profit agenda at all costs. It demands that organizations respond appropriately to environmental challenges and approaches natural resources from the perspective of responsible planning and ethical management.
For assets such as oil that depletes and cannot be replaced, saving them for future generations cannot be defended immemorial, at some point they will be used up and the asset will be gone forever. The onus on the generation using the depleted asset is to make sure that it is not wasted and that the most beneficial use is made from it while it remains. How they are used, however, must be considered in the wider context than simply private enterprise. The use of world resources for Doing Good for society as a whole must be considered. The current situation means that the oligarchs maintain possession of such resources, at the cost to the wider society in the pursuit of private gain. Such possession has little to do with creativity, innovation, or development but rather is a result of luck, either as an accident of birth or being in the right place at the right time.
However, there are natural assets that renew, such as fish stocks or agricultural land. Assets, which can in the right circumstances naturally, replace themselves. In respect to these resources, the current generation of humanity has a duty to ensure that its stewardship leaves the asset in at the least the same place, if not a better place than when we took possession of it. In this respect the environmentalists win the argument over the economists, at least in an ethical sense. We cannot allow the pursuit of profit to decide whether fishing the oceans and the extinction of fish species happens and especially when such a resource is part of our global food resource. The current situation of fishing quotas is absurd and archaic, leading to abuses and profiteering at the expense of a resource that, with continued mismanagement, cannot be recreated or fixed by a later generation if destroyed by our own.
Growth versus Sustainability
Capitalism relies on growth, and market reactions on an organization’s share price are based on whether the organization has achieved growth and has hit its stated growth targets. Even if an organization is growing, if the market is unimpressed with its growth rate, share prices can tumble. But more growth, too fast growth is not necessarily a good thing, especially from an environmental perspective. There needs to be a balance between growth which contributes to the depletion of natural resources and reducing environmental costs in the delivery of the betterment of humanity. There also is a need to balance the rights of the current generation versus the rights of the future generations to inherit an environment, which can sustain life and the rights of human society over the rights of the natural world. It isn’t a case of should we preserve our environment, but is about taking up a mandated role as steward of planet earth, taking what we need without resorting to plunder and giving back as well as just receiving. Nature is different from the things that man builds for himself; it is part of a symbiotic relationship, which requires mutuality and careful attention. Nature as an asset is different for our normal understanding of assets, in a similar way that humans as a resource differ from other forms of capital resources. It isn’t that we should use natural resources to help us progress, but as we progress the well-being of the resource should be part of the calculation. The environment is not a static display in a museum that must be preserved as it is, but rather it is careful management in a dynamic of cooperation, which can be used to enhance the lives of humanity and other species. For example, the use of gray water to flush toilets reduces the need to draw water from aquifers or drain rivers or lakes. Make sure that water we draw for drinking is replenished and, critically, our waste is properly dealt with to avoid pollution of the waterways.
Often organizations view environmental protection policies as something that adds cost to the business, but “Negative environmental actions damage financial performance, both in the short- and long-term. The persistence of this negative effect of irresponsible actions over time shows that it is important for companies to avoid these kinds of actions” (Tebini et al. 2016). But it is more than a cost/benefit equation, we must accept the obligations of stewardship, delivering a management agenda based on ethics and values and a planned use of natural resources, which ensures that their full potential is used in the betterment of humanity. There are certain natural assets which once used will be gone forever. Oil and mineral wealth once depleted cannot be replaced and therefore it is essential that such natural assets be used strategically and with as little waste as possible. The loss of such natural assets to future generations is acceptable if we can demonstrate that we have not wasted such natural assets. However, other natural assets, such as food, animals, and plants, are reproductive and provide nature’s own renewable resource. It is the renewable assets toward which mankind must demonstrate the greatest level of husbandry to ensure that the environment is able to reproduce abundantly the assets that we can enjoy now and potentially forever. Although we need to meet the requirements of the present generation, we should always be mindful of the lives of those people who are yet to be born. We cannot mortgage the health of the environment at the expense of future generations.
The environmental argument should not be about whether economic development and the pursuit of prosperity are good or bad. We must not allow the green agenda to wrap any proposal for development in a blanket of greed and unsustainable theft of natural resource, just as capitalism must stop treating environmentalists as tree-hugging romanticists who aren’t living in the real world. Economic growth and societal development are necessary if we are to alleviate global poverty. But the real question that we must address is how we achieve this in a way that is sensitive to the environment and is sustainable. Once again ethics and values become a central part of the argument for and against growth and development. It is in the arena of environmentalism, more than any other area of development, that partnership and a holistic approach to stakeholder management are necessary when organizations are making decisions that will have an impact on the natural environment. The question should not be whether it is right to consider external costs of organizational decisions, but how those decisions impact the wider environment and to what degree are those costs acceptable or how much of that cost must the organization be obliged to restore. Self-interest does not service society or the environment where organizational decisions have consequences that impact beyond civil society.
The introduction of the triple bottom line—people, planet, and profit—is an interesting development in recent years. It shows, once and for all, that organizations finally understand that they have a responsibility to the planet if they are to continue to be successful. From a strategic perspective, there are good reasons for organizations to adopt environmentally friendly policies. Increasing costs of oil and gas and the demand for managing costs via supply chain efficiencies as well as protecting Brand reputation are all good business reasons to pursue a green agenda. But there is also a growing awareness of a conflict between depleted natural resources and a growing demand, especially from China and India, for a greater share of natural resources previously reserved for Western economies on the back of colonialism. As costs rise, organizations are required to consider alternatives, which provide efficiency, cost reduction, and reducing reliance on shrinking resources, to ensure that organizations do not face shortages and resource crisis in their operations. However, there has more recently been a steep change in the understanding regarding our impact on planet earth. There is a growing consensus that global warming and environmental pressures not only will impact countries in regard to environmental disasters but now constitute a potential threat to our very life on earth.
The industrial revolution did much to damage the environment, and what is becoming increasingly obvious is that Capitalism is incompatible with the long-term sustainability of human life on earth. Quite possibly we have reached a crossroads where humanity has finally discovered a convergence between industrialization, technology, and environmental awareness, which has created a dawning realization that we can no longer continue the way that we always have. Humanity is at an environmental crunch point where our continued pursuit of growth and abuse of natural resources has become unsustainable. We may yet avoid environment collapse, but research suggests that our use of natural resources, even those that are renewable, is exacting too high a cost on the ecosystem and the result will be greater levels of disruption to civil society than we have yet experienced. The problem is how quickly we can change direction and to what extent the damage is irreversible. We are faced with a choice, which requires a different economic system as well as the need to harness the productive capabilities, innovation, and inventiveness of the human entrepreneurial spirit for the protection of the wider environment and nature.
One question that must be addressed in regard to the stewardship of our planet is in regard to that of growth and whether any pursuit of growth is compatible with a “green agenda.” Many campaigners, especially those who are concerned with climate change and sustainability, argue that it is necessary for society to focus on zero growth in order to avoid environmental crisis. To make such an argument is to assume that there is evidence that suggests that all growth is bad. In studying capitalism, its focus on growth and profit as outcomes can be seen in the negative consequences such a pursuit has inflicted on the world. But without growth can it be argued that there is enough for everyone to go round? Since there is a finite set of resources in the world, exponential growth is unlikely, unless we take to the stars and start trekking beyond this planet’s boundaries. But given that commercial space travel and certainly industrial space travel is many years off, where does that leave us today in regard to the argument for or against zero growth?
Growth and the generation of wealth must be pursued for the purpose of something, not as a purpose in itself. Using environmental resources to improve medicine, produce food, and create room for leisure pursuits are reasons for growth to be considered. But such growth needs to be measured differently from traditional economic measures regarding GDP and consumption. Measuring the level of natural resources, especially in regard to rate of renewal, is a more holistic approach to whether growth and environmental stewardship are compatible. If the purpose of an organization were to switch from a profit agenda to that of Doing Good, then growth would become something we would all seek more of. After all, if, in achieving growth, an organization, government, or society were able to do more good, then growth would be something to be applauded. Since Doing Good would also involve Doing Good in regard to environmental concerns, would it be safe to assume that all growth would be good? Take, for example, the problem of global warming. Growth in this area, while achieving the goal of Doing Good, would involve first ensuring that global warming was slowed down and that any activity minimized the risk of increasing global warming. Second, Doing Good would also reward those organizations and individuals who created innovative and inventive solutions to global warming—whether that be technological or agricultural. In these areas, under a Temperatist ideology growth would be acceptable and indeed encouraged. However, growth which had a detrimental impact on the environment or society, such as building super highways out of concrete, expanding cities by destroying natural habit, or destroying rainforests for logging, would not meet the criteria of Doing Good. Alternative resources, methods of production, and solutions would need to be found for growth to be encouraged, and organizations and governments will be forced to create entrepreneurial and innovative solutions to overcome the barriers to growth dictated by “Doing Good.” Temperatism doesn’t therefore suggest that growth should be abandoned, or even that growth is undesirable, but that growth should be given a social and environmental context as to whether it is necessary or compelling.
Ownership and Accountability
Although organizations and nations can claim to have ownership of land and the earth’s life-sustaining resources, it cannot be left in the hands of the self-interested few to decide on their use at the detriment of the long-term survival of life on this planet. Organizations must have responsibility for and demonstrate a commitment to environmental stewardship and citizenship that respects “nature, universal rights, economic justice and a culture of peace.” And those organizations imbued their purpose with a “responsibility to one another, to the greater community of life and to future generations” (Mayer 2007). We must accept that we do not have true ownership of the natural resources, but rather that we are loaned them for a period of time and must ensure that we return them for future generations in the same, if not better, condition that they were given to us.
Big business has repeatedly demonstrated that it is more concerned with its own self-interest than that of the environment or legacy. Though many would argue that capitalism can achieve positive environmental mechanisms and point to the rise in “green business” initiatives, for most of the capitalist establishment environmental issues, just like poverty, is left in the hands of government. But the difficulty with government is that it is influenced by big business. In a world that is dominated by energy conglomerates, oil companies, and finance, the green agenda has had an uphill battle to get heard. The evidence of big business putting the block on the green agenda can be seen in the actions of government in the last few decades. The contradictions between actions such as that taken by Regan who “slashed the budget by over 50% for solar energy research that was spurring sustained innovation . . . [and] had the solar panels removed from the White House” (Patterson 2010) indicate that there is a conflict between the governments’ needs to woo economic behemoths to invest in the country and the environmental agenda. There are many organizations that are attempting to advance the innovation of eco-technologies, but overcoming the opposition by the oil and mining companies or automotive manufacturers is made more difficult when politicians fail to support fledgling attempts for Doing Good in the area of environmental sustainability. The only solution to changing the way that we manage the planet is to change the management and challenge the dominance of the ideology of the capitalist market economy.
The issue is wider than purely capitalist economies though. Socialist and communist states have been equally remiss in their treatment of the environment, showing little regard for the local ecology when pursuing the state agenda. The destruction of the Chinese countryside under Chairman Mao and the Nuclear and Chemical disasters in the Eastern Bloc demonstrate the same lack of stewardship regardless of the ideology of the time. Therefore, any attempt to move forward, to change our future is to adopt environmental stewardship as a tenet of an ideology, and Temperatism equates stewardship as a key platform upon which the proposed ideology stands. We need to be equally temperate in our activities, which have an environmental impact, as our approach to the pursuit of wealth creation. Doing Good includes doing good for the wider environment.
But even with scientific evidence that climate change is melting ice caps, raising sea levels, and increasing the number of incidences and the intensity of drought, flood, and hurricane, the capitalist market system is being used as a vehicle to promote a cap and trade system for carbon emissions. Rather than solve the problems of diminishing resources and pollution in the system, carbon trading means that it is cheaper to share in the cost of producing the pollutants than in cleaning them up or developing processes to not produce them in the first place. The trade in carbon emissions negates the spur for organizations to invest in research and development for ways in which they can cut emission in their operations. The market for emissions trading once again demonstrates the ability of the capitalist market to consider short-term solutions to a problem, while failing to connect with the core issue and the delivery of long-term and sustainable outcomes. When the political establishment would rather pursue a capitalist market solution than a sustainable environmental solution to solve environmental problems, it only highlights how the pursuit of financial gain has distorted the reality of human endeavor. The fact that carbon is impacting the climate and the world’s natural resources seems to have boiled down to barter and number games. The issue, of course, is that planet earth cannot afford a market system, which offers a cycle of boom and bust, because if the planet goes bust life on earth does too and there will be no chance for recovery. However, when environmental regulation is put into place, like the recent decisions by European countries to ban petrol cars by 2040, it has led to a response by manufacturers to invest in research and development for electric cars, which is already increasing the market for such vehicles. Therefore it is not that we can’t produce environmentally friendly products and services, it is that there is no incentive to do so.
Many organizations have already recognized that humanity has failed in its role of Stewardship toward planet earth and that there will be a shortage of natural resources, which are currently relied upon within our society. Farsighted organizations have developed a plan that recognizes that they will soon be unable to continue to operate in the way that they do, as resources and materials that they rely on currently run out. There must also be attempts to make products and services and business and manufacturing processes more environmentally friendly by producing goods which are less demanding on material and energy resources. As organizations develop processes for innovation and the implementation of new technology to combat areas of natural resource decline, they are rewarded with greater profitability than those who are late adopters of green technology. For the environmental effects of industry and man to be brought under control and to diminish the negative external effects of organizational life, there has to be a collective effort. Organizations and society must be held accountable for clearing up the mess that it makes. The situation currently is that it is the societies in which capitalist corporations exist that suffer from environmental disaster, such as when the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico occurred. But cleaning up the environmental effects at a local level is not enough. We must go further and begin to work together as nations, organizations, and local communities to ensure that the work being carried out is having a global impact and that regardless of the source, the benefit of improved environmental care is felt where the effects are.
Another consideration that must be explored is that of whom we are Doing Good for. Although today’s citizen, organization, and government is important in making decisions regarding what is or is not Doing Good, the world that we leave to our children and grandchildren must also be on the negotiation table. There may be many things that we choose to do today, which have unintended consequences further down the line. In Victorian times, the building of sewers took the problem of human waste out of the cities, which had a positive impact on the health and well-being of the individuals who lived in cities and removed the problems that urbanites had suffered from for years in regard to plague and waterborne diseases. However, to begin with, the sewers took much of the waste and pumped it away from the cities and into the rivers, which had a dramatic effect on the wildlife in rivers and streams around the UK. Even in 2012, some of the Victorian sewerage systems still exist and the UK has recently been fined by the EU for pumping raw sewerage into rivers against EU regulations. The point of this illustration is that Doing Good has to be seen in a holistic framework and solutions cannot be taken in isolation. Understanding the wider system within which the solution is operating can help those making the decision be aware of possible unintended consequences a decision made today may have on future generations. It is difficult for contemporary society to care too much for future generations and a population that have yet to live, especially when we have pressing concerns of our own, but if Temperatism is to remain a people-centered ideology, then the argument is that all people, past, present, and future, are equal and the welfare of future generations must be taken into consideration and safeguarded as much as the contemporary population’s current needs and wants.
It is important to note that although not explicitly mentioned so far, animal rights do form part of our stewardship of planet earth. Working in harmony with, rather than against nature goes hand in hand with Doing Good from an animal rights perspective. Good animal husbandry is part of that mix for environmental stewardship. As we move away from a profit-centric model of farming and agriculture to one that is Doing Good, the production of food and the protection of local plant and animal life are necessarily part of the wider system. Temperatism promotes the building of a culture of husbandry that supports better animal welfare as practiced by farmers certified by the soil association and organic certification bodies.
In practice it is difficult to see all the problems and unintended consequences of our actions. That is, after all, why they are unintended, but taking time to consider whether Doing Good will succeed in an outcome of good not just today, but 10 years, 50 years, or even 100 years from now is important in regard to being accountable for our actions. One of the biggest plagues capitalism inflicted on our planet was short-term thinking, robbing the natural world of its resources without a thought regarding tomorrow. Accountability doesn’t matter to a CEO who is rewarded for this quarter’s results and won’t be in post when the consequences of nefarious actions become someone else’s headache. Organizations must consider their operations in a longer timeframe, creating a plan for 50 years hence might seem ridiculous, but if organizations are not thinking ahead, then they are not Doing Good.
It will be difficult to hold government, society, and organizations to account for something that may or may not happen 100 years from now, but if we do not try to consider our future and the future generations in our decision making now then we will continue to be a poor steward of planet earth. There is perhaps a strong onus on government and organizations to consider their role in sponsoring and supporting research which focuses on issues such as natural resource renewal, environmental stewardship, and reducing consumption of natural resources, new ideas regarding energy generation and of course the reduction in the rate of climate change. Capitalist short-termism has failed to produce the necessary momentum to pull together the best of human innovation, inventiveness, and creativity in addressing the environmental concerns that we face. But fighting over who is to blame will waste time, energy, and resource, which should be spent on developing a new pathway.
In the UK, consumers want and are willing to pay for food produced locally and which protects the local environment. Gigantic supermarkets are, like many oligarchic industries, a result of the capitalist pursuit of profit. By changing the agenda to “Doing Good” the practice of squeezing supplier margins which result in lower quality production methods will be put under the microscope and enabling farmers to protect their livelihood Protecting agriculture, reducing the impact of large enterprises to dictate to the local community and encouraging local food sourcing would all benefit from a Doing Good agenda and help to improve the welfare of animals, as well as establish protection of the wider environment in which food production takes place.
We cannot return our planet to some form of eighteenth-century, preindustrialized idyll. Those days are gone and we gain nothing from returning humanity to a time where we do not benefit from the prosperity that technology has given us. However, although planet earth cannot be treated as a museum, we must not allow it to become a mausoleum either. Preserving natural treasures for continual use in the future is good stewardship of resources, which even the most utilitarian economist can appreciate.
Nature is a resource to be used for the good of mankind, but if ever the term “Temperance” was to be applied in regard to a resources use, then Nature and the environment that supports our very life on this planet is one of the best teachers of the need for Doing Good than any other endeavor man places his hands to.