Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Environmentalism In Name Only

The illusion of environmentalism in some companies' plans is something that reflects a broader trend of certain corporations "caring" about moral issues sometimes just to manipulate consumer loyalty, appear superficially moralistic, and not sacrifice their brand strengths.  The fact that some corporations only change their products, marketing, or treatment of employees, to name some things not solely connected to environmentalism, when current events pressure them to is proof that the particular company in question likely cares only for profit, and the founders or leaders want to be as popular as possible for the sake of money.  Now, only a fool who makes assumptions thinks that it is logically impossible for a company's managers or higher leaders to genuinely care about moral and other philosophical issues for their own sake; it is possible for anyone who is willing, no matter their occupational, class, or social standing, to care about and understand these things.

It is just that an egoistic, irrationalistic person unconcerned with reason, morality, and sincerity for their own sake would only be likely to care about the environment, if they care at all for it and not for the way they can rally public support and money because of it, only to stabilize or increase their wealth.  It is not that being a CEO means one is egoistic and irrationalistic, but in the climate of American business, it could be more probable that someone consumed by selfishness and hypocrisy would actually ascend to that position, and such a person will almost exclusively care about simply expanding their corporate empire or just amassing as much profit as they can.  This is precisely the kind of business leader who might lie about their company's pro-environment actions, inconsistently pursue processes less damaging to the environment, or partake in environmentalist measures just to improve their bottom line (the total earnings left after expenses).

He or she might, even if they do not lie, say that the company has done a specific thing to help preserve the environment while overlooking or perhaps even trying to distract people from something else.  Not that any examples are needed to understand this objective logical possibility, but something like the recent decision from Apple to not include chargers with the iPhone model of 2020 to supposedly reduce carbon emissions from transportation is only likely to spark an outcry for chargers for the new devices, which now, when the missing "accessories" are shipped, would involve more transportion than would have been the case initially if Apple had not made this idiotic choice.  Of course, Apple would also be able to separately charge people for these accessory chargers, so this actually would harm the environment more by transportation-related emissions and give the company more money for selling the same standard kinds of products, just separately for those willing to buy them both.

A major company that even is truly is doing one thing to lessen strain on the environment while carelessly or intentionally doing many other needless things that correlate to damaging the environment is not really helping the environment in any sincere, holistic way, and the little that they do might not actually be motivated by anything deeper than a shallow desire for as much money as can be obtained from people who do care about the environment.  This is at best environmentalism in name only, a facade to appease shifting cultural values for monetary gain instead of to live out philosophical substance.  Environmentalism is not even the heart of ethics and the environment is not even the core of reality: the physical world cannot even be proven to have the appearance it seems to have, and the whole of nature is not something with an existence that is utterly foundational or that exists by logical necessity.  Any probabilistic difficulties with treating the environment in a given way are nevertheless only likely to be acknowledged by some parts of the business world when it affects their revenue.

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