Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways

Coal power plants provide electricity to millions of people around the world. Electricity heats our homes, cooks our food and runs every kind of device imaginable. It also pollutes. Air pollution pouring from the huge smokestacks of power plants is a well known occurrence. What is less familiar is the water pollution created through air pollution control. The article Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways by Charles Duhigg focuses on the relationship between these pollutants produced by a power plant on the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. When the owner of this plant, Allegheny Energy, installed scrubbers to remove harmful toxins from the air, it seemed as though environmental headway was being made. However, that pollution had to go somewhere, making the Monongahela a dump site for waste water. Now residents of the area and government workers from The Environmental Protection Agency are trying to develop new regulations that prevent not only air pollution but water pollution as well. Instead of altering the form of waste they want to make it mandatory for the plants to install more complete waste treatment facilities.

To determine the most ethically correct course of action we must first determine what entities are affected and what ones are going to be considered morally. Water and air pollution has very widespread effects. For example, air pollution ruins the air quality of the closely surrounding areas, but it also is spread by wind currents to other countries as acid rain. Water pollution of the Monongahela River will introduce harmful toxins to local ecosystems predominately but also to the lakes and other rivers that it feeds. Also, farms that rely on the Monongahela for irrigation will spread toxins in the food to countless areas. These widespread effects make it challenging to decide what components to ethically consider.

We will generally create four distinct groups for consideration of what counts morally; humans, sentient organisms, non-sentient living organisms, and the abiotic components of an ecosystem. For this purpose we will consider all beings classified as animals to be sentient and any protista, archaea, bacteria and plants to be non-sentient. Although it would be ideal to consider the needs of all of the components, that is a next to impossible task. Hopefully by considering the needs of what we deem to be morally significant we will also look after the ecosystem as a whole.

The main dividing point in these two groups seems to be between sentient and non-sentient beings. This is a reasonable division because, as discussed in class, non-sentient beings do not make plans for the future. A rock or a tree will continue to exist without acknowledging changes in pollution levels. Sentient beings on the other hand will notice the changes around them as well as how these changes affect their lives. Using sentient beings as entities of moral significance coincides with the article’s view of the demarcation problem. Charles Duhigg only considers the impact of air and or water pollution on human populations, which most would agree, are the most morally relevant and sentient individuals. His statistics highlight the effects of air pollution on human respiratory disease and the effects of water pollution on drinking water quality. Duhigg does not consider the needs and wants of the ecosystem.

When considering water verses air pollution in relation to humans and animals, consequentialists would probably consider the current pollutant control methods adequate. Consequentialists consider moral action to be right or wrong based on the outcome of the action. Maximizing total happiness is often sufficient reason to proceed with a morally wrong action. The outcomes are considered good or bad depending on how they affect those of moral significance. The outcome of water pollution is not yet known. Even which chemicals are in the pollution is under debate. Air pollution however is known to cause respiratory disease (Duhigg, 2009). Duhigg also explains how current pollution control methods are increasing the happiness of humans: “when Allegheny Energy decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed” (Duhigg, 2009). From the consequentialist point of view it seems as though we are currently in a very happy state which the installation of more expensive pollution control methods is not guaranteed to improve.

The non-consequentialists have an opposite method of judging moral action. From this viewpoint actions are right or wrong in and of themselves. Consequences do not determine whether the cause was right or wrong. Based on this definition, continuing to pollute water is morally wrong. Animals and people as morally valuable beings have a right to a clean environment. By polluting our water or air we compromise this right. Therefore money should be spent to install additional methods of pollution control. The deontologists would argue that it is morally wrong to pollute our environment when we have methods at our disposal to reduce that pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency is adopting a non-consequentiatist view of coal pollution. They are attempting to initiate regulations that will tell “power plants that they need to genuinely clean up pollution, rather than just shift it from the air to the water.” (Duhigg, 2009) Despite power companies insisting that they have installed the most up to date air and water treatment methods, the EPA has realized that it is ethically wrong to pollute the air and water that morally relevant beings depend on.

- Amy Adair

References

Duhigg, Charles. "Cleaning the Air and the Expense of Waterways." The New York Times 13 October 2009: A1.