Question

In considering the BP Oil Spill, what circumstances would ethically justify a government or private company in restricting information made available to the public during a disaster? At what point might other companies have an ethical right to intervene regarding environmental disasters? Your response must be at least 200 words.

Answer 1

Answer with its Explanation:

Part A.

There must be a clear information sharing policy of an organization like BP Oil Spill to restrict the inappropriate operations and reduce the negligence of the organizations so that they might not effect the future and present generation. Its evident that in technologically advanced era, the flow of information is just one internet search away. So the restricting of information is mostly impossible and that the restricting of information like Oil Spill can be far much dangerous for both land and marine life. So here, clear policy of defining the type of information to be conveyed to general public would be very useful. It is also one of the best practice that sustainability stresses upon which says that the operations that undermine or compromises the needs of the future generations must be abandoned.

There must also be a recovery policy for the ecosystem that we had damaged and thanks to social entrepreneurs who are doing this job much better than most of the multinational organizations.

There are also situations where the restricting the information is allowed and includes the following situations that permits the restriction of information:

• If the information is not accurate then it is advice that the organization must wait until the situation is crystal clear to be interpreted and disclosed to the general public.
• If the provision of information can lead to security threats then it must be kept confidential till the time the security threat has been eliminated.
• If the flow of information leads to the increase in the chaos and stress among the people then it must be retained during a disaster.
• If the information results in increase in protests and affects the normal life of general public then it must be restricted for general public.
• If an information promotes war among the nations then it must be restricted.
• If the information that is for small time interval and has potential harmful outcomes due to disclosure of information then it must be retained by the organization.

The above mention points make it clear that the information can only be disclosed if the sensitivity of the matter is lost with time. The disclosure is compulsory because now it is the ethical requirement of the company to disclose the information. The disclosure of information must include the reasons that explains the issue and its root causes. Furthermore, it must also address the reason behind the retention of information and how it was in the best interest of the nation.

Part B.

In the time environmental disaster, every single person on earth has a moral duty to help each other to assist in recovery of the damage from the environmental damage. Likewise the organizations are playing their part during current pandemic to help the world recover from the losses they had born due to virus affecting the operations of all the companies and human beings.

Following are the situations in which the organizations must play their role in the time of environmental disaster:

• If the environmental disaster is of potential magnitude that the ethical values imposes the duty to act then the company must play its role.

• The company has to act if the country has limited resources to take action and can not control the situation without the assistance of the companies.

• If the disaster has endanger the Biotic environment then the companies must do more.
• If the impact on the environment is continuously growing with time and if the companies are not taking right actions then it is possible that in the near future the harm to the society will be large and symptoms will become prominent as well.
• If the environment disaster is large enough that it will spoil the reputation of the industry and as result results in harm to numerous stakeholders of the industry or if the whole of the industry would be blamed for negligence.