SUMMARY WRITING

By : Ni Made Desi Swastiki

1906287414
 Taking Responsibility
Patrick Guntesperger Notes
The Jakarta Post Weekender Magazine, July 2007

All future generations have the right to expect that the current generation is not Everyone living has the
prospering by writing environmental checks that will be drawn on our children‘s account. responsibility for environmental
Everyone living has the responsibility of leaving the planet in a condition that is
acceptable to those who will inherit our environmental assets as well as our planetary
liabilities.

Resource-based industries—mining, oil and gas extraction, lumber and fisheries, and any
other business that gathers and sells the raw materials that exist on Planet Earth—can be Resource-based industries have a
said to have a special set of responsibilities to the planet and the people who occupy it. A special set of responsibilities to
not unreasonable point of view is that those industries take commodities that have been the planet and the people who
given to all the occupants of Earth and sell them at a profit to their fellow occupants. occupy it
Certainly those other occupants need those resources; certainly they benefit from having
them extracted, refined, and made available for use; nevertheless, those resources are a
planetary legacy from which a small segment of the planet‘s population is reaping
enormous profits.

Among the renewable resources industries is the fishing industry. It is only reasonable to
expect that those who catch and sell the creatures from our oceans do so in a way that Bad industry that happen
ensures the survival of the species they capture. Simply decimating fish populations, as was in fishing industry
done to the codfish of the eastern North American coastal fishing grounds, is not merely
short-sighted; it is bad economics and worse business. Worse still; it is immoral. To
eliminate a population of animals that were once so plentiful that they could literally be
gathered by dipping buckets over the gunwales is a demonstration of greed so
monumental it is staggering.
Causes : blasting coral reefs
Of course, the fishing habits in this region are nothing to brag about either. Even the with dynamite or pouring
small, independent fishermen from outlying islands know that blasting coral reefs with cyanide into the waters
dynamite or pouring cyanide into the waters to fill their boats for the market is wrong.
They know that, but they do it anyway because there is a profit to be made, and that comes
first.
For those who make livings from
For those who make their living from theoretically renewable resources, the responsibility renewable resources must ensure
attached to their actions is clear: ensure that the resource is actually renewed. Take what that resources are truly renewed
can be taken in a sustainable way. Those who make a living by taking a species from the
sea must also be stewards, responsible for the sustainability and well-being of that species.

The partially renewable resource industries include the lumber and pulpwood industries. Biodiversiry habitats are
These are described as partially renewable because, while the forests can be replanted and disappearing because of the many
continue to produce timber and pulpwood indefinitely, the virgin, first-growth ecosystem industrial demands
that was destroyed to cut the first shipment is gone forever. The wildlife habitat, the
biodiversity, the rare species that once occupied that parcel of land will not regenerate in
our lifetime or in hundreds of lifetimes. Nevertheless, the world continues to demand wood
and paper products; that demand is not going to go away any time soon, and the industries
that supply that demand will be around as long as there are trees.
What is unconscionable, however, is the rape and pillage approach that too many forestry Looting and damage to resources
companies take— and companies in Indonesia are the worst offenders in the world. For a that many Indonesian companies
company to wipe out a delicate ecosystem by clearcutting millions of hectares of rainforest do
and then simply move on to the next virgin tract of land, leaving nothing but a moonscape
behind, has absolutely no acceptable justification
There are many ways to make
There are many ways to make forestry a truly sustainable industry. Selective logging, forestry a truly sustainable
restricting the cut to the annual growth rate, and above all, reforestation are all industry.
straightforward ways of using land that has already been exploited and avoiding moving
into the last few stands of untouched forest in the world.
The players in that partially
The players in that partially renewable resource industry clearly have a responsibility to renewable resource industry
minimize the devastation they cause. Equally clearly, they have an obligation to make the clearly have a responsibility to
land that once contained irreplaceable virgin forest into a sustainable source for harvesting minimize the devastation they
timber in partial compensation for having taken something that they can never give back. cause
The final category—nonrenewable resource-based industries—has an even more
compelling and specialized obligation. Those industries have a moral duty to develop Those industries have a moral
alternatives to replace the resources they are exploiting. International law ought to require duty to develop alternatives to
that oil, gas, coal, and other non-renewable resource industries spend a significant replace the resources they are
percentage of their revenue on the research, development, and deployment of alternatives exploiting.
to their products

To continue to extract a resource that will be totally depleted in the foreseeable future and
yet upon which the entire world‘s economy depends, without a foolproof backup plan is
alternative sources
astonishingly irresponsible. Those alternative sources exist in the form of hydrogen, wave,
tidal, geothermal, wind, solar, and other absolutely clean energy forms, and simply need a
focused effort to be made practical

To disregard them and continue to increase our use of and dependence upon fossil fuels,
which are killing the planet, is a fairly serviceable definition of insanity.
 SUMMARY

"Taking responsibility" an article by Patrick Guntesperger explains our

responsibilities for the future of the world, specifically mining of resource-based
industries, extraction of oil and gas, timber and fisheries, and any other business
that collects and sells raw materials on Earth. there are many reasons why we
must protect the earth, one of which is because of the bad industry in fisheries
that use coral blasting, to disregard them and continue to increase our use of and
dependence upon fossil fuels, which is killing the planet, is a fairly serviceable
definition of insanity.