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2019 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

7. Business, Environment, Society

Author : Jadranka Skorin-Kapov

Published in: Professional and Business Ethics Through Film

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

The first part looks at environmental issues. The cases include the Exxon Valdez oil spill case (1989), the Flint Michigan lead-tainted-water (2014–2017), and the water contamination case of Woburn, MA against W. R. Grace and Company and Beatrice Foods (1984). The following films are presented: A Civil Action (1998) based on the Woburn case, Michael Clayton (2007) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004). Resource takeover is illustrated in the film Leviathan (2014). Examples of human rights violations in the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India (1984) and in Dhaka, Bangladesh, garment industry tragedy (2013) are discussed, following with films The Constant Gardener (2005), and Blood Diamond (2006). The third part looks at societal challenges. Films with plots connecting disparate situations illustrate unforeseeable ethical consequences of decisions, e.g. Human Capital (2013), In a Better World (2010), and Babel (2006).

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previous chapter Professional and Business Ethical Challenges

next chapter Career Pressures, Responsibility, Identity

See the description at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-environmental/.

The site for getting information on how to become a benefit corporation is http://benefitcorp.net/.

A short video entitled Man (3:36 min) by Steve Cutts, presents the artist’s view of the destruction of our habitat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU).

The report from National Transportation Safety Board on September 18, 1990 describes the reasons for the tragedy, document available at https://web.archive.org/web/20100611194527/http://www.ntsb.gov/Recs/letters/1990/M90_26_31A.pdf.

NOAA Office of Response and Restoration’s description of Exxon Valdez oil spill is available at https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/significant-incidents/exxon-valdez-oil-spill.

Case summary is described at https://serc.carleton.edu/woburn/Case_summary.html.

In Sect. 3.1 we discuss the film Erin Brockovich (2000) based on the real case instrumental in building a lawsuit against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company of California for contamination of drinking water with hexavalent chromium. As is known, the case was settled in 1996 for US$333 million.

The link to the Woburn water contamination case is https://serc.carleton.edu/woburn/index.html.

Description of Schlichtmann career is available at https://www.forthepeople.com/attorneys/jan-schlichtmann/.

See the ClassAction.com site at https://www.classaction.com/about/.

The film notes are presented at http://www.amc.com/talk/2014/06/story-notes-for-the-day-after-tomorrow.

The information about The Day After Tomorrow is displayed at https://web.archive.org/web/20150402200020/https://au.movies.yahoo.com/galleries/gallery/6013706/top-10-scientifically-inaccurate-movies/6013711/.

See the page https://www.ecowatch.com/the-day-after-tomorrow-ice-age-scenario-could-be-possible-researchers–1882107632.html.

See the description at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_meridional_overturning_circulation.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Survey 2017 is available at http://www.shaperssurvey2017.org/static/data/WEF_GSC_Annual_Survey_2017.pdf.

The short film (6.5 minutes) is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwmA3Q0_OE.

See the description of global justice at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-global/.

The simplified version consisting of the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights created for young people is available at http://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/articles-1-15.html.

Union Carbide Corporation is currently a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company, purchased in 2001.

The information regarding the Bhopal tragedy is available at Madhya Pradesh Government’s page “Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, Bhopal” at https://web.archive.org/web/20120513202720/http://www.mp.gov.in:80/bgtrrdmp/default.htm.

The information from April 2018 is displayed at the Business & Human Rights Resource Center page https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/5-years-on-from-rana-plaza-building-collapse-labour-rights-organizations-urge-brands-to-sign-renewed-bangladesh-accord-on-fire-building-safety.

See the article at http://www.industriall-union.org/global-unions-reach-us23-million-bangladesh-accord-settlement-with-multinational-brand.

The prophet Job is described in the Old Testament as a family man who endures many tragedies losing everything, but is afterward generously rewarded by God, and dies as a very old and happy man.

We briefly mention Hobbes’s Social Contact Theory in Sect. 2.3.3.

Another film dealing with child-soldiers in Africa is Beasts of No Nation (2015) directed and co-written by Cary Joji Fukunaga, based on the novel of the same name by Uzodinma Iweala.

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Title: Business, Environment, Society
Author: Jadranka Skorin-Kapov
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: Professional and Business Ethics Through Film
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-89332-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-89333-4

Copyright Year: 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89333-4_7

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