Environmental Protection: Whose concern? Essay

Environmental protection is a multi-faceted issue amid alarming figures of environmental degradation and the growing concerns on global warming and its doomsday consequences. As such, each players within the society: the government, private companies, and individual citizens share the load together. The primary social institution that should care much to address the problem is the government. The government sets the priority direction, and creates strategies, promulgates policies and laws, provides incentives, and supports the private sector on every program to mitigate environmental problems, and protect the remaining undamaged ecological resources. The US is even lauded for its focus â€Å"on cleaning up the most obvious examples of environmental pollution through rigid command and control of industrial and government facilities to reduce end-of-pipe sources of pollution (American Chemical Society, 2008). † The industry is one of the major contributors to environmental problems. Without the efforts of this business sector, the problem would be harder to solve. Rivera & Delmas (2004), however reported that most businesses only employ environmental management systems because they are forced by government regulations and not voluntarily. In the other hand, some concerned business sectors also agree and help government efforts. The energy sector for instance realized that â€Å"for the longer term, the development of economically viable renewable energy sources is a key challenge for Research (Jennings, 2008). † The consumers as the end point in the value chain also share the chunk and encouraged to take actions. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spelled out a lot of things people can do from proper waste handling and disposal systems, energy saving, and many others (Environmental Protection Agency), and these can be done at home, in office, in the community, and almost every place. There is an urgent need to take action, or else humanity would suffer the consequences. And it has been proven long that all sectors of the society are responsible. The governments take set the tone and take the lead while the other sectors must cooperate to achieve the global environmental management goals. Bibliography American Chemical Society. (2008, September 27). Statement on Federal Government Role in 21st Century Environmental Protection. Retrieved April 1, 2009, from ACS: http://portal. acs. org/portal/fileFetch/C/CSTA_015555/pdf/CSTA_015555. pdf Jennings, J. (2008, February 2). The Role of Business in Environmental Protection. Retrieved April 1, 2009, from China Council for Internaltional Cooperation on Environment and Development: http://www. cciced. org/2008-02/02/content_9638865. htm Rivera, J. , & Delmas, M. (2004). Business and Environmental Protection: An Introduction1. Human Ecology Review, Vol. 11, No. 3 , 230-234.