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Evaluating Future Generations

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Evaluating Our Responsibility to Future Generations

"I suspect that if there is cause to fear for man's survival it is because the calculus of logic and reason will be applied to problems where they have as little validity, even as little bearing, as the calculus of feeling or sentiment applied to the solution of Euclidian geometry." -- R.
Heilbroner

The above quote from Robert Heilbroner speaks well to my feeling after reading some of the theoretical approaches to the ethics of our
"obligation to future generations" from this weeks readings. For example,
I found Derek Parfit's essay to be particularly unfulfilling. He set out to find a formula "X" which was derived from logic and yet could provide us an answer to all …show more content…

She deals with issues of low and high-level radioactive waste and its disposal. I called my mother to ask her for an explanation of why she cares about future generations and about some of the issues relating to our obligation to future generations that she encounters surrounding this issue.

The nuclear waste issue is relevant here because it deals with two issues - how should we produce energy and how do we deal with the risks involved with the byproducts of nuclear energy? As DesJardins discussed,
"Even a small amount of plutonium will remain highly toxic for 250,000 years" (71). So in considering waste disposal, the possible effects of leakage create risks that potentially reach extremely far into the future.
The issue my mother is currently evaluating is the proposal by Carolina
Power and Light, Co. to double the high level waste to be held at the
Sharon Harris facility in Chatam County, North Carolina. Investigations have shown that the doubling of waste in this facility (to the equivalent of 10 times the capacity of Chernoble) will increase the risk of leakage and suscepabilty to accidents. They also know that if a serious accident were to occur, that an area the size of the state of North Carolina could be effected by the radiation. This, of course, is a situation replicated in various places around the country while we try to find a place to store the waste continuously being produced by our

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