The Daily O’Collegian

Long has a fierce public relations battle waged between environmentalists and corporate managers, and, as with most any debate, a political stigma has been attached to each side.

Either one side is a bunch of hippies or greedy fat cats, depending of course on the perspective. It seems there can be very little middle ground to be had.

In the past few years, the battle has been focused on global warming, and some who deny that it even exists.

Belief or disbelief in the science behind global warming is a personal issue, and not one that public policy should focus on.

If the government’s duty is to serve the most while doing the least harm, public policy should err on the side of conservatism. I don’t mean that in the right-wing political sense, but rather the sense of preserving the status quo, which here favors environmentalism.

The effects of human expansion around the globe make it undeniable that humanity can drastically alter nature in a harmful way.

It wasn’t that long ago when nations came together to seek to eliminate anthropogenic emissions like chlorofluorocarbons, which were creating a hole in the ozone layer.

At the least, one should recognize that humanity can harm nature, but the next logical step would be to seek to preserve and conserve the environment.

If we believe ourselves to be the stewards on this world, then it would be our responsibility to be environmentalists. However, the bottom line is still important.

The easiest argument to make against environmentalism is to point out the cost.

This is certainly short-term thinking, but as the economist John Maynard Keynes said, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” It’s only natural to worry about the effects on our wallets today, so this makes for a convincing argument.

Of course, convincing and correct are not the same. I recently learned something — a curious thing to do while at college — that destroys the cost argument.

In my cost accounting course, we just discussed a chapter about eco-efficiency and environmental cost.

Just as a company recognizes quality costs such as recalling a defective product, an environmental perspective helps to assign the costs of environmental degradation.

The goal, is to reduce costs thereby bolstering gross margins.

While assigning the costs of air pollution may be too complicated to fully quantize, investing in control measures should produce less failure costs, just as investing in the quality of a product should produce fewer defects and recall costs.

Under the environmental costing perspective, not only can companies focus on the bottom line, but also be environmentally conservative. This adds a new dimension to the age old argument, and makes it far less divisive.

We can have our cake and eat it too, if only we seek to be more innovative and efficient, which are characteristics we certainly should further develop.

A proverb says “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” We can be more responsible for future generations, while also encouraging prosperity in the current time. In the end, partisan bickering can give way to universally beneficial middle ground.