Corporations are fighting a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency that would make public how much they pollute. It is not surprising that oil refineries and producers and manufacturers of steel, aluminum and even home appliances—the country’s biggest corporate polluters—are opposed to the proposed regulation.
 Polar ice is melting due to climate change |
Companies claim disclosing the details of their emission of greenhouse gases would reveal “secrets to competitors,” by letting them know what happens in their factories. In fact, their desire to keep secrets hidden from public view reveals the cutthroat competition inherent in the capitalist system.
“There is no need for the public to have information beyond what is entering the atmosphere,” states Steven H. Bernhardt, global director for regulatory affairs for Honeywell International Inc., a leading manufacturer of hydrocarbons, compounds found in greenhouse gases. He went on to say, “It will damage business.” Of course, he does not mention the long-term effects of these dangerous emissions on the population or environment—only the impact on their profits.
Since the 1970s, scientists have shown that the earth is warming as a result of increased emission of so-called greenhouse gases. Due to this phenomenon, global temperatures in the first half of 2010 reached all-time highs. Rising temperatures have led to global climate change—more extreme weather, including heat waves, droughts and hurricanes, leading to increased human hunger and disease, especially among the poorest and least developed nations.
Most recently, six of the largest oil companies have purchased water rights in Colorado (enough water to supply the Denver metropolitan area for six years) in order to develop oil from shale, a process that extracts kerogen from sedimentary rocks to then be converted into liquid hydrocarbons. The purchase of water rights was motivated solely by the drive for profit, completely disregarding a most basic human need, water, not to mention the long-term effect of increased hydrocarbons.
But the corporations do not want you to know this; they want to keep their “secrets hidden.” The pro-industry Federal Trade Commission has asked the EPA to treat data used in emissions equations as confidential, since it could lead to “collusion among companies.”
This request shows no concern for the exploitation of the environment, only for the right of the capitalists to maximize profits. As Karl Marx wrote in “Capital”: “Capitalist production … only develops the techniques and the degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the worker.”
Long-term solutions to environmental problems will never be possible as long as key economic decisions remain in private, profit-driven hands. Only a planned and organized economy based on the needs of the population can develop a sustainable environmental plan.
