Cars burn a lot of oil, causing considerable damage to both the environment and the atmosphere. Every year the number of vehicles increases and, consequently, increases the content of harmful substances that vehicles produce. The constant increase of the cars on the road has some negative impact on the environment and human health. Environmental pollution by transport is one of the most unsafe for human health because the exhaust enters the atmosphere.
My thought about increase of gas taxes so the use of cars would be limited is the following; I agree with this idea, because in my opinion person’s life is more important than the comfort of the motor vehicle and I support my opinion with an Act Utilitarianism theory. This theory states that the right action is the one which produces the greatest amount of benefits for the greatest number of people. The way I see it, by increasing the gas taxes, people would start use less of their cars and this will cause the decrease pollution, the less pollution goes in the air the cleaner becomes our environment which supports the life on our planet. In this case many people will benefit from the gas taxes, since they will live longer and healthier lives.
I personally don’t see any injustice in it, because humans will benefit from decision completely. The way I understand it, our government job is to make our planet the safe place to live for human kind, so in some situations they must make sacrifices. So if in some case they will have to ride a bike to their job, I don’t see anything wrong in it. Regarding some other solution which will help us to avoid the increase in gas taxes, I think that electric cars or hybrids is the solution.
Hybrid car saves the amount of fuel consumed by almost a half compare with conventional cars. Owners of the Hybrid cars are saving as twice money on the gas comparing to the owners of the regular cars that use only gas. Also, using hybrid cars is considered a great contribution to the environment. Hybrid cars with low emissions can reduce the damage to the environment caused by emissions of gases which including carbon dioxide. Hybrid technology reduces emissions by about 30 percent. Electric car comparing to the hybrids is even healthier for our planet, since it runs on electricity without any fuel. So in my opinion there are ways to make our planet healthy place to live without raising prices on the car fuel.
Regarding the questions about the US governments that are partial owners of the auto industry, in my opinion the US governments have the rights to encourage automakers to discontinue the production of “gas guzzlers”, because governments are paying more attention to the pollution problems and health of the nation comparing to the auto industry. As I mentioned in the Pinto’s Case, auto industry is all about the money, so if it is calculated that it’s more profitable to pollute the world, they will do it without any hesitation. By controlling part of the auto industry governments can control the health of our country and the world. I again support my opinion with the Act Utilitarianism theory.
In my opinion the ethical consideration of restricting the development of world's access to the same cheaper technologies (fluorocarbons, coal burning plants, etc.) that made the US what it is today, is the understanding the damage that these technologies bring to our planet. When these technologies were created, science wasn’t thinking about the damage that it will bring to our planet; instead it concentrated on benefits that will be brought to the human kind. When many of these technologies were created, no one knew the consequences of these inventions, like global worming or the damages that it will bring to our ozone layer.
References
Shaw, William H., and Vincent Barry, Moral Issues in Business, 11th edition, Wadsworth
Publishing Co., 2010.
Fermi, Laura. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Oct1969, Vol. 25 Issue 8, p. 35-37.
Kliesch, James. Mother Earth News, Feb/Mar2011, Issue 244, p. 58-64.