Caring for the environment is important and urgent due to the problems arising from the waste produced in the industries and the waste thrown by humans, and the excessive felling of trees that represent a source of oxygen for society.
That is why in this presentation we address issues such as: Ecological culture and environmental rationality, environmental ethics, quality of life and basic needs, environmental standards. Accounting and the environment, the central theme of the paper in which the following subtopics are discussed: Ecology and accounting, Accounting and the environment, global warming and its consequences.
When thinking about the future of our children, we must be interested in these issues, which are what will give us the guideline to maintain a healthier environment and avoid further contamination of the natural environment and the excessive felling of trees to maintain oxygen. necessary in human life, flora and fauna.
Ecological Culture and Environmental Rationality
The destruction of the natural resource base, the ecological imbalance, the environmental contamination and the degradation of the quality of life, has led to a revision of the moral principles that guide the behavior of men and that legitimize decision-making on the practices of use and exploitation of natural resources.
Thus the need has been raised to generate an "ecological culture" to transform man's relationships with nature. This culture is generally understood as an awareness of the different social authors and a mobilization of citizens to protect the environment. In this sense, ecological culture is limited to the field of ideological formations, without touching the roots of productive rationality and the styles of development on which the processes of environmental degradation depend.
Ecological culture must be conceived in a broader framework, in which these ideological processes transform the relations of production and the relations of power between the State and society. Thus, the ecological culture extends towards the construction of an environmental rationality through the following processes.
- The establishment of the axiological framework of an environmental ethic, where the moral principles that legitimize individual behaviors and social behavior towards nature, the environment and the use of natural resources are forged.The construction of an environmental theory, through the transformation of concepts, techniques and instruments to lead socioeconomic processes towards sustainable development styles. The mobilization of different social groups and the implementation of participatory environmental management projects, founded on the principles and objectives of environmentalism.
Environmental ethics, quality of life and basic needs
Human rights related to the environment emerge as a fundamental demand to improve the quality of life; This is understood not only as the satisfaction of basic needs and a certain level of material well-being, but as the right to a decent life, to the full development of man's faculties and to the realization of his moral, intellectual, affective and aesthetic aspirations through the reconstruction of the environment.
The demands for a better quality of life go beyond class boundaries, permeating man's new rights to a healthy and productive environment. These values transcend aspirations for a better standard of living, the right to land and employment.
Environmental awareness as objectives of the environmental development strategy base their meaning on a substantive reality, understood as a system of values, meanings and cultural norms characterized by their diversity and relativity. Environmentalism is a radical critique of the needs imposed by the expansion of capital and by overconsumption that depletes resources at an exponential rate. The concept of quality of life redefines human needs and rethinks the bases of the production process, to satisfy them within a new social rationality.
The notion of quality of life overcomes the simplistic division between objective needs and subjective needs, including the dichotomy between physiological and psychological elements, or between need and desire. In his analysis the notions of well-being, standard of living, conditions of existence and lifestyles are surpassed; economic and ideological processes are interwoven in the definition of symbolic and material demands, in the imposition of satisfaction models through demonstration effects and in the advertising manipulation of desire.
Despite the critical effects of the concept of quality of life on the theory of needs and well-being, a more functional notion has also emerged, with the purpose of "humanizing" consumption and explaining and ranking basic needs. In this way, man's need to have access to productive work, certain creative amenities and participate in decision-making is recognized; But these demands are not raised in relation to the conditions of access and self-management of resources, the consumption patterns produced and implanted from outside, and the macroeconomic implications that will generate greater self-sufficiency for communities, based on diversified consumption and with a decentralized development. This would lead to redefining production conditions to satisfy basic needs,through another value and productive rationality.
The quality of life is surpassed with the quality of the environment; and the satisfaction of basic needs, with the conservation of the productive potential of ecosystems, with the integrated use of natural resources and with the ecological sustainability of the habitat. But that quality also depends on unpublished forms of identity, cooperation, solidarity, participation and fulfillment, as well as the satisfaction of needs and aspirations through new work processes.
Thus, although progress has been made in the development of more sophisticated quality of life indicators than traditional well-being indices, the evaluation of qualitative aspects continues to be dominated by the need to produce quantitative and objective measurements. Although efforts have been made to incorporate subjective perceptions and value systems that affect quality of life, the theory has not yet derived instrumentable indicators for a social organization governed by principles of environmental rationality.
Environmental standards
The effective existence of environmental problems, especially those caused by the waste left during the production process, symbolized by these large smoking chimneys, which until recently was a symbol of progress, full activity, great productive capacity and that many industries proudly displayed; Now due to pollution and growing concern for the natural environment, they have even led these companies to modify their criteria regarding what they thought was the image of a large and important industry, radically changing its image to that of non-polluting and aware of the environment.
This is a new problem that has had to be faced and the existence of rules or norms that must be followed to standardize situations has been necessary. In our country these norms have existed for a long time, but perhaps they were not considered until a few years ago when they begin to produce many problems for the community and especially when the world begins to become aware of the issue. Perhaps the triggers that led to the change from the economic and productive criteria to a more ecological one were the Chernobyll disasters and the discovery of the damage to the ozone layer that was produced even by household products.
In our country we must remember what originated the issuance of some regulations related to the environment, such as the atmospheric pollution of Santiago, which has led many companies to modify their criteria and even their way of production, because they are exposed to fines and penalties.
Environmental accounting
Basic aspects.
Modern management cannot currently neglect the company's commitment and its environment. Respect the laws of each country that have been established on this aspect, as well as international regulations and, of course, in determining what is its real cost in achieving non-contamination.
Engineer Carlos Mora Venegas points out that in a work presented by Carolina Marín Tamayo, on this subject, that the sciences have sought to make the most of the environment that surrounds them according to their object of knowledge to satisfy the needs of a society of consumption; but today after having used without foundation or reason, destroying the ecosystem, it is these same sciences that realizing the error are trying to reorient their actions for the conservation of life on the planet.
Those most mistaken in their position to conserve the environment have been responsible for political and economic practices. In this regard, Marín points out, the policies for their irrational management have generated corruption and misuse of the resources that the rulers have had in their power, economically since their object of study is the distribution of wealth and with the main objective of endless growth.
They do not care about the survival of humanity but about growth without limits. It is therefore necessary to become more aware of the irrational use of the natural environment, such as the environmental crisis generated by economic development, the underestimation of natural resources and the environment in the face of economic consumerism, and the importance of asserting control and vigilance. on the use of the environment.
Marín emphasizes in his work, that we also consider that, in a macroeconomic sense, social accounting should give the accountant the opportunity to participate in the process of measuring the environmental impact exerted by companies on the social and natural environment where the performance of Accountant management is highly demanded every day.
Today a high dose of environmental knowledge is demanded, where it is essential that the accountant properly understand the magnitude of the pollution problem and the incidence of such a process on the different means in which biological and social plots are developed; in order to reveal the degree of responsibility of the company as a polluting unit, obliged for this to compensate the environmental costs caused by the production processes.
Of course, it must also be clearly understood that the environmental impact is the result of developing activities or works in progress or new projects that are likely to produce changing effects. Hence, the environmental management of the public accountant, if possible, requires above all that the professional have minimal theoretical knowledge that allows him to understand the complexity of the environmental problem without losing sight of the man-nature relationship. It is also highlighted that, from the decision to contribute new elements in the field of accounting, the area in charge of studying and analyzing the processes of measurement, valuation and control of natural resources and the environment from the accounting perspective arises,In order to contribute to the construction of various concepts that broaden the field of action in accounting in economic entities, for this the appropriate instruments of evaluation and control over the degree of susceptibility are used, and present the operations carried out by the entity economic.
In short, to speak of environmental accounting it is necessary to have exhausted the stages initially described, such as the measurement of natural resources and the environment, which is a little explored field in relation to environmental goods and services that are not They measure why they are not part of the non-negotiable goods in the market.
All this is necessary to achieve an efficient environmental accounting system that allows accurate measurement of all natural components. This investigation must contemplate the four basic components of measurement: measuring instrument, measurement object, base of measurement and unit of measurement. Take into account that another component of greater controversy today is the valuation of natural resources and the services provided by the environment.
Valuation is the action of recognizing, estimating or appreciating the value of a thing where this is the quality of things that makes them the object of appreciation. Also keep in mind that the environment is a good outside the market and does not have a certain value.
They are treated as externalities and their intrinsic value is detached from them, with monetary values, this being the great problem for accounting. So decisions are being made about historical data. In addition, the determination of environmental costs, among other problems, is difficult.
To this is added the role of control from an environmental point of view, where it is defined as the set of plans, methods, policies, procedures and mechanisms for verification and valuation, which are adopted in order to ensure that the activities related to This topic is carried out on principles of preservation of natural resources and the environment.
Consequently, various approaches to environmental accounting have emerged such as the World Resourses Institute approach, the accounting approach as a management tool and the united nations approach, the latter is used for the creation of the environmental economic accounting system, which is based on the formulation of a system of satellite accounts that allows it to be integrated into the system of national accounts. Social accounting restates the meaning of accounting information and claims the value of the use of accounting as soon as a social need is satisfied.
Therefore, the concept of social responsibility is integrated into the accounting profession and assumes that the information produced must be invested with objectivity and impartiality, to allow the community to know to what extent the activities of economic units affect or benefit the social groups of its surrounding geographical environment in order to establish the existing agreement between the real expectations of the community and the actions of the company; advocating for the accountability of the actions developed by the productive unit, which is done by the accountant to the multiple users that require it.
Accounting and the environment
The environmental problem is the consequence of an ecological crisis that could not be stopped or controlled.
Environmental degradation, now more than ever, has jeopardized the future of the human species. Some scientists have even gone so far as to make apocalyptic forecasts if nothing is done to reverse this situation. This has led man to react strongly in view of being able to face what is now his greatest challenge "survival".
The preservation and conservation of the biosphere, the expansion of the perception of the idea of quality of life with all its implications and the new concept of sustainable development, are the visible face of the current position that has been established in response to environmental problems..
What can be expected from this and the consequent revision of concepts and ideas, is the emergence of a new model for information systems, since these should allow the information situation or context to be adequately reflected for analysis and evaluation from the new perspective conceived, based on the now different information requirements relevant to the user.
A good demonstration of this new perspective is given in the frank decline of the thought that society has regarding that profit generates employment, income, prosperity and well-being, since profit, as ecology is proving it, does not necessarily generate quality of lifetime.
Ecology and Accounting
For many at first it has been difficult to believe the degree of relationship that can exist between ecology and accounting, since they understand them as disciplines so distant and dissimilar from each other.
The union of ecology with accounting has been shaped by virtue of the environmental problems presented by companies. Thus we are witness to the strong influence that ecology is having on the business economy. Now this is where accounting comes in because its objective is to measure those economic events that affect the entity to provide relevant, reliable, reliable, timely, understandable, objective and comprehensive information.
Another much broader view of this relationship is given by an expert, who affirms that accounting became essential at the time of wanting to face the environmental problem, since he says that: to face environmental conservation problems, companies have with many management procedures and techniques, several of which are directly related to accounting functions (especially with regard to the disclosure of accounting techniques for environmental protection measures and potential damage that has occurred). In this sense, the incorporation of accounting into environmental matters comes to fill a need related to the way of quantifying,record and report damages caused to the environment and the preventive or corrective actions necessary to avoid them (environmental protection measures).
The search for solutions to the environmental problem requires companies to have a perfect knowledge of the problem, knowing it implies explaining today's impact on the future, and explaining is a concept that considers knowing, identifying, naming, measuring, disclosing, reporting and communicating. It is then here where we begin to relate ecology to accounting, since the science of the accounting process, as already mentioned, captures, registers, reports and reports.
Global warming
Global warming: increase in the temperature of the earth due to the use of fossil fuels and other industrial processes that lead to an accumulation of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chloroflurocarbons) in the atmosphere.
It is the phenomenon observed in temperature measurements that shows, on average, an increase in the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans in recent decades.
The names climate change are sometimes used, which designates any change in the climate, or anthropogenic climate change, where the influence of human activity is implicitly considered. Global warming and greenhouse effect are not synonyms. The greenhouse effect increased by pollution may be, according to some theories, the cause of the observed global warming.
Why does it happen?
Thanks to the presence in the atmosphere of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and other gases responsible for the greenhouse effect, part of the solar radiation that reaches the earth is retained in the atmosphere. As a result of this heat retention, the average temperature on the Earth's surface reaches about 60ºF, which is conducive to the development of life on the planet.
The names climate change are sometimes used, which designates any change in climate, or anthropogenic climate change, where the influence of human activity is implicitly considered; Global warming and greenhouse effect are not synonyms; the greenhouse effect increased by pollution may be, according to some theories, the cause of the observed global warming.
Any type of climate change also implies changes in other variables. The complexity of the problem and its multiple interactions mean that the only way to evaluate these changes is through the use of computational models that try to simulate the physics of the atmosphere and the ocean and that have limited precision due to the lack of knowledge of how the atmosphere works.
The period over which warming can be observed varies depending on the approach. Sometimes since the Industrial Revolution; It is noteworthy that many graphs used to show warming begin in 1970, when the temperature began to rise again after 36 years of average decline, despite the fact that the significant increase began in the years after World War II. of emission of greenhouse gases.
Current consequences
Global warming has brought with it a large number of very damaging consequences for human beings. Currently, changes in the climate can be observed, which demonstrate it. Global temperature has increased by approximately 0.8 ºC (See graph 1). This heat affects rainfall due to The evaporation process is accelerated by having higher temperatures, and this increases the humidity in the air and the precipitations that affect the entire planet, since it causes frequent floods and landslides, resulting in large material losses and National annual precipitation has increased between 5 and 10% since the beginning of the 20th century, mainly as a result of heavy rains in some areas.
The states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts each had more than double the normal rainfall in June 1998. Heavy flooding in the states of Texas, Montana, and North Dakota during the summer of 2002 caused damage by hundreds of millions of dollars. Paradoxically, the same evaporation that increases the rains and causes deadly floods, causes great droughts in summer, also causing losses of all kinds due to the great heat, this same heat brings with it fires that devastate forests and cities.
How to combat Global Warming?
RAYS T
What are they? T-rays are beams of radiation whose frequency is on the order of terahertz (hence the T), which is equivalent to a billion ripples per second. The energy generated by this form of radiation is three to five times greater than that of radio emissions, and between one thousand and ten thousand that of X-ray and Gamma-ray emissions.
What are they for? They are useful because they can penetrate any material, including organic cells, without causing damage, unlike X-rays, whose overexposure is fatal. The possible applications of these rays range from scientific research, such as the study of the properties of superconductors, to medical imaging, and of course also as security measures (for example, the search for weapons and drugs at airports).
What progress is there? In 2002 a team from the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator in Virginia, USA produced a 20 Watt T-ray beam. In 2005 researchers at the BESSY Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Berlin, Germany used a similar technique and obtained a higher quality beam.
Terahertz are difficult to produce and detect, they have a higher frequency than microwaves but lower than infrared light. The terahertz emitters that are now on the market emit many frequencies at the same time, limiting their usefulness. There are several international projects that have made substantial progress in producing emitters with a lower frequency spectrum. (Article: When destiny reaches us, Published in the VERY INTERESTING Magazine February 2008)
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Manuel bravo Urrutia 1998
Ing. Carlos Mora Venegas
Written by AGENCIES, Friday, April 25, 2008 06:00
www.novaciencia.com/2008/03/27/se-desprende-un-gigantesco-blo-de-hielo-antartico/
Washington. The Washington Post. Special for Clarín
elblogverde.com/se-desprende-blo-de-hielo-antartico-de-500-kilometros-cuadrados/ Posted by Martín, March 27, 2008.
