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Verbum

Document Type

Faculty Essay

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph:

Planet Earth is in trouble. Present and future generations are contributing to and inheriting levels of environmental degradation unparalleled in human history. Increasingly violent weather, droughts, floods, water and air pollution, species extinction and other environmental calamities are becoming commonplace. Every day we read alarming statistics and bleak forecasts about the deteriorating state of the environment and our chances of future survival, and every day there’s a new round of worry, finger-pointing, and denial. While government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), environmental activists, and concerned citizens labor to protect and save the earth community, their efforts continue to meet stiff resistance by those who benefit from exploiting and diminishing the earth’s natural resources. While we all contribute to this problem as producers and consumers, one of the primary institutional drivers is corporate capitalism, particularly as it has evolved in the United States. Today, America’s national and multinational corporations are dominant forces on the world stage, wielding tremendous power over economies, governments, and people’s lives. Advocates boast that their success is the result of a superior economic system that promotes free markets, individual initiative, hard work, and private ownership, but in reality their commercial and financial success is largely the result of the brutal and murderous relationship human beings have with nature.

First Page

71

Last Page

83

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