Shadows and light
Rhetorical questions, some easy, some particularly difficult, all worth thinking about:
If your house near the ocean has a beautiful view, should the person who buys the lot closer to the shore be able to build a house on it?
If your restaurant needs to empty the dirty oil from the deep fryer, is it okay to dump it on the curb, possibly causing a bicyclist to slip and crash?
If your car painting facility exhausts tiny droplets of red paint while doing a job, and the paint floats away and lands on a white car nearby, are you responsible?
Is it okay to make money selling building toys made from little tiny powerful magnets? What happens if kids eat the pellets and suffer internal injuries?
Should a factory dump poison in the river, even if it’s legal?
If you deep fry your holiday turkey, is it okay to pour the used oil down the drain? Or dump it into the river?
Can the architect of a skyscraper specify mirrored glass, even if the glare bothers people in nearby buildings?
What about building a huge skyscraper that casts a shadow all day on the park next door?
And… is it okay to take a private jet to Scotland, even if the exhaust from that jet will cause distress to countless people who didn’t choose it? What if it takes a long time for the effects to be felt?
No easy answers. But we need to keep asking the questions.