Ethics

Chat about a topic supported by books, TED Talks, podcasts, personal experience, philosophies of mankind mingled with humor (shout out to IOT), and maybe we’ll even do a google hangout or conference call once a month.
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Meilingkie
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Ethics

Post by Meilingkie » Wed Nov 23, 2016 1:35 pm

As some know I work in shipping with one of the worlds largest shippinglines.
This being MSC, Mediterranean Shipping Company.

As it happened I had an intern to work with today, so we talked work, my job, and a lot about shipping in general.
With 15 years of experience I know the ropes a bit, and my memory helps. Got a lot of stories to tell.

So the young lady asked about the importance of the Port of Rotterdam with regards to bunkering.
Bunkering - refueling of ships.
So true, yes Rotterdam is cheap, and we got to talk about it.
We have one of the planet´s largest Petro-Industrial complexes, with almost every major western oilcompany having a refinery here.
Massive storagefacilites, and a deep-waterport.

We talked about clean fuels, and I asked a simple question:
Desulphuring of fuel happens here, what happens with the sulfurous compounds removed from the fuel??
Sulfur-free fuels are mandatory here, for cars and ships alike.

So she said, I don´t know, bear in mind she´s a College-student in Logistical Management, no dumb girl.

Do you see any yellow hills near refineries? I asked. No, Do you see yellow smoke? No, it´s banned.
So where do you leave the bad stuff, ship it out? No....??

The refineries mix it back and sell it in low-grade oil, gasoline, diesel etc. for the markets in the Far East and Africa.
In effect Europe exports its pollution !!
No acid rain here like in the 70´´s, but in Africa nowadays.
The irony is staggering, the oil we get from Nigeria is almost the best on earth, with zero sulfur-content.
The gasoline they use is very highly enriched with the stuff.

She was shocked, then I asked.
One of our biggest customers is Trafigura, who have made their fortune doing this kind of work.
It´s not illegal, but is it ethical?
No, obviously not she said.....

Another question then:
What´s more ethical. Helping a business like Trafigura ship out their trashy fuel to Africa, or refusing to treat it, and get fired because headquarters asks your boss to sack you for dereliction of duty??

So I concluded:
It´s an easy choice if you are young and have no financial responsibilities to speak of.
If you are the sole breadwinner like I am, it´s quite another.

Ethics in the end is a hobby to indulge in for people who are financially independent.
"Getting the Mormon out of the Church is easier than getting the Mormon out of the Ex-Mormon"

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FiveFingerMnemonic
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Re: Ethics

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Fri Nov 25, 2016 6:28 pm

That is fascinating. Very interesting thoughts on the practice of exporting pollutants.

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Corsair
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Re: Ethics

Post by Corsair » Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:41 am

The battle between legal and ethical is something we all must watch carefully.

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Zadok
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Re: Ethics

Post by Zadok » Thu Dec 29, 2016 11:05 am

And all this time I thought that rotten-egg sulphur smell was something in the back of my fridge. I had no idea it was an export.
If I'm a bird, why can't I fly?

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Hagoth
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Re: Ethics

Post by Hagoth » Tue Jan 03, 2017 9:02 am

Corsair wrote:The battle between legal and ethical is something we all must watch carefully.
As a pirate you should know that walking the ethical tightrope is particularly easy if you wear an eye patch. You can block out the unpleasant parts of reality and only see those that are useful (said BKP).

To bring this discussion around to LDS institutional ethics, I find it interesting that legality and moral ethics are sometimes mixed and matched by apologists as necessary to make the story work, like when it's ok to destroy a printing press when they are printing sacred/secret truths.

Case in point, the Nauvoo polygamy essay. When the authors mention that Helen Mar Kimball was just as few teeny, tiny months short of her fifteenth birthday they are quick to point out that we shouldn't be concerned because it was legal to marry a child of that age, but then they move the patch to the other eye and fail to mention that marrying more than one woman of any age was entirely and utterly illegal.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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Corsair
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Re: Ethics

Post by Corsair » Tue Jan 03, 2017 10:10 am

Hagoth wrote:
Corsair wrote:Case in point, the Nauvoo polygamy essay. When the authors mention that Helen Mar Kimball was just as few teeny, tiny months short of her fifteenth birthday they are quick to point out that we shouldn't be concerned because it was legal to marry a child of that age, but then they move the patch to the other eye and fail to mention that marrying more than one woman of any age was entirely and utterly illegal.
Notice that they don't bring up the obvious age difference when Joseph was 23 years older than Helen. Not only was a young marriage age unusual for Helen, it was even more scandalous due to the age difference. This essay felt like they had a few narrowly focused points to explain about the relationship but did not want to make it more complicated by bringing up any other issue.

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