This week’s reading response covered ethics: personal, social and conservation. Each system can work together to help create a peaceful and proper society. However, in some cases one system will overlap another and create problems on which to follow.
I believe that conservation ethics is a very important that we need to consider and work on. As our planet becomes ever more populated, we need to look for better and cleaner ways of creating energy and dealing with trash and pollution. These changes or ideas should not just be designed to help out the human race, but also to help out Earth. I really liked this quote from Technical Communication Today: “The health and welfare of the ecosystem around you should also be carefully considered.” Our race cannot survive just by itself. We require food and materials that come from other creatures and plants, and in turn many of them require food and nutrients from other sources to live. If you kill of one part of the food chain, it is possible that the rest will follow in death as well.
When preparing and writing our white paper, it is important that we write ethically. Personal ethics will be shown as well as social ethics. First and foremost, we, as a group, must work together and treat each other with respect. Being ethical as a group will keep everyone happy and make the paper easier to complete. While writing our white paper we must take care not to plagiarize any of our sources. We must not misinterpret or provide false information about SharePoint or any of its competitors to attempt to make one look more favorable. Our job is to provide our readers with a fair look at multiple platforms so that they can judge the options for themselves.
Conservation Ethics
I completely agree with you about the importance of considering conservation ethics. Only a few years ago, the majority of people could care less about the environment and "going green". Recently however, all that has changed. Once the government started taking an interest in this area, many people followed suit. Whether it's buying CFL bulbs, conserving water, or conserving electricity, saving the environment has become a much more popular movement. I think the change probably came when people began to realize that the consequences of our actions may be seen sometime in the very near future. This makes it even more important for people and business to think about conservation ethics when making decisions. There are a lot more laws now regarding this area and a lot of people that are very passionate about it. Unpopular decisions regarding the environment could end up costing some companies a large chunk of their client base.
Al Gore to the rescue! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Talk about a snowball effect. Starts with a few people saying "Hey pay attention". Next people are changing light bulbs, and then driving less and soon they are eating organic foods and producing their own energy. Conservation ethics, as you state, is one of the biggest areas we, as the human race, can improve on. It is one thing to sit around and say how we can improve but it is a completely different thing to actually get up and do something about it. But I think that that is what we are approaching now. When I went and saw Thomas Friedman speak about a "Green Revolution" one of the things that I really liked was when he said something along the lines of, "[Discussing articles like "10 Easy Ways to Go Green"] We need to have a revolution. A green revolution. And one thing about revolutions is that they are not easy. They are messy and people get hurt. If a business fails because they don't go green so be it. (Side note- In thinking about it now it sounds like he is A) seeing the future of American car companies and B) would not be in favor of the bailout.)
Andy
Go Green
In business today every company is trying to find some way to make their product or service environmentally friendly. As I am sure you have noticed all different types of businesses are advertising how they are “going green” and this all leads back to what you mentioned: conservation ethics. It is a huge deal in society today, so I think that it is very important as we write our white papers that we all keep conservation ethics at the front of our minds in order to do the right thing for the environment. The “go green” movement we have seen in this nation over the past few years has had a very strong impact on everyone, and businesses who do not comply with the movement will likely be left behind.
Companies Go Green
I think some of the green movement is a great way for a business to go. Some ways of going green are great ways to cut costs. Some businesses have gone to supplementing their power with power generated from wind energy. This is great. All they have to do is have the land to place the wind mills and be located in an area where there is enough wind to make it worth it. Sounds like a great investment to me. This allows the company to take part in the going green and you have a good return on your investment.
-Chris
ethical or fanboy?
I agree with what you are saying about conservation ethics and being more mindful to the environment. While it is great that more and more people are jumping on board the “green” bandwagon, there seems to be a lot of trendiness involved. I think it’s great that people are becoming more mindful of their energy consumption and waste, but they should do it because it’s good for the environment, not because it’s in style. This brings up the example of the Toyota Prius. They sell like crazy but are hardly the most economical vehicle on the road. People just fall into the herd mentality, not even thinking about what they are doing.
Response
I can't believe the number of times I've seen something "green" that made me think, "Really?". For example, certain auto manufacturers making "Green" SUVs. I'm sorry but no matter what you do an SUV is almost always going to be a giant waste of space, raw materials, and fuel. Just think auto makers, if you had actually put some time and money into making cars that already get good gas mileage get better gas mileage where would we be today. However I think that more and more people are being converted from fanboys into actual conservationists. They start going green to be cool but then see how easy it is and how much of a positive difference it makes.
Andy
Finally...
someone else gets it. "Green [insert noun here]" isn't what a lot of people think it is. The term "green" is simply a marketable byproduct of the necessity (via economical advantages) to reduce costs by reducing wastes, required input material, power, etc. What makes this marketable is the fact that so many people are currently aware of the impact (or at least marginally aware) of the things we do/make-this can be partially attributed to pop-culture/media. An ok article on this topic in relation to food, not the best but it's getting there: http://media.www.spectatornews.com/media/storage/paper218/news/2009/03/3... I'm willing to bet that there are just as many people now, working on alternative energy sources, as there were 50 years ago (in terms of scientists/engineers); a lot of sustainable processing techniques and solutions have been proposed, but not implemented until now.
OP: I'm not sure exactly what your white paper topic is (presumably something with sustainability) and as far as ethics goes for your white paper, make sure to consider other people's ethics in relation to what I've said here. Are they doing this for the right reason?
I'm sure you're right. They
I'm sure you're right. They were probably never implemented due to the high cost factor. Only now has it become desirable (some might even say fashionable) to pursue these "greener" avenues. Only now that we are more aware of our impact on the environment do those high sticker prices become more attractive as they out way the cost of buying a new planet. Oh wait...
Andy
The Ethical Lie
Yeah you bring up a good point about there being more than one type of ethics. There is an ethical manner on how to treat people and then there is an ethical way to write the white paper project. If you wanted to persuade a group of individuals you could possibly make the white paper more like a persuasive speech. That would be a very unethical thing to do with talking about any project. I guess i understand what you are saying about the government but that is a large argument in society today. I actually heard that the first car company that make a "green" car gets a 150 million dollar bonus from the government. Now that is a something to strive for.
Using these ethics to your advantage
I think you could really take a lot of these positive ethics and use them in a way to persuade your audiences. You make all of these positive remarks about the ethics behind conservationism. Use these positive ideas and such to inform your audience of the ethical implications they would have if taking the conservative actions. The ethics behind your topic should really help shape your paper. Make sure that you take ethics into consideration when outlining your audience’s needs and such also. There may be certain audiences that see the ethics in a different light and may have conflicting thoughts on what might be ethically right and what might not.
Ethics
I'm definitely going to have to agree with you about what you said about using ethics to try and persuade. Using ethics should be able to help any one with any kind of argument. I think this will help especially when it comes down to doing white papers because the whole goal is trying to persuade people. There are so many different kinds of ethics that can be used. The two main ones that I believe someone could use would be using personal ethics against a legal or political ethic. I have found that at times these two different kinds of ethics tend to contradict each out and that could be used in someone's favor.