The author has chosen to use a question-answer format in order to make the often complex subject matter, easier and more enjoyable to read. Q and A is not a dialogue bewteen real people -- the author has provided the dialogue for both Q, standing for Quaero, which is Latin means "I search for" and A, Auctor, which in Latin means "person responsible."
Q - I realize that you feel that the American people are already subject to too much regulation and yet you are an ardent nature lover. How do you reconcile your views when it comes to taking a stand on the environment?
A - I'm distressed because I see fun-loving well meaning Americans becoming timid and frightened because of misinformation. We worry about radon in basements, alar on apples, ozone holes, nuclear energy, greenhouse gases and so forth.
Q - Does that mean you think concerns about the environment are misplaced?
A - I'm not arguing that environmental concerns are trivial or misplaced. Pollution, overuse of various resources, toxic waste disposal, and other environmental issues are legitimate concerns.
Yet these problems arise, not from a failure of the free market system, but from the very failure to apply free market principles to resource management in the first place. The failure to define property rights in all natural resources has led to what some observers have referred to as the "tragedy of the commons."
Q - "Tragedy of the commons." What's that?
A - The phrase was coined to describe the tendency to treat publicly owned resources as free goods, to which everyone has a claim, but for which no one bears responsibility. That's why we have disputes over the management of vast tracts of government-owned land.
Q - What is there to manage on public lands, besides timber and range for cattle?
A - Few people realize that most of the remaining valuable resources in the United States are found on federal lands. It has been estimated that public lands contain 85 percent of our estimated oil reserves, 72 percent of the oil shale, 37 percent of the natural gas, and over half the country's remaining mineral deposits.
Q - Because of the obvious mismanagement in Washington, D.C., you may be right in asking whether we can trust politicians and bureaucrats to conserve and manage public lands wisely.
A - Less than a quarter of federally owned land has been explored for oil and gas and more than half is exempted from oil and gas leasing by law.
Q - Some people are happy with this policy or lack of policy or benign neglect or whatever you want to call it, but others believe this kind of custodianship poorly serves the needs of consumers and taxpayers.
A - In the 18th century Adam Smith pointed out that the publicly held lands in Europe produced less than a quarter of what comparable private properties produced.
It was only natural to conclude then, as now, that privatizing public assets would make them more productive. Private owners would have an incentive to eliminate waste and nurture their own property.
he contrast between the publicly owned and depleted oyster beds on the Maryland side of Chesapeake Bay and the privately owned carefully tended beds on the Virginia side is an example of the incentives property rights provide. By careful husbandry privately owned resources can be made to flourish so that even though the owner has used the resource he still has something to sell or to bequeath. Extra effort is rewarded as value is preserved or even enhanced.
Q - I suppose you would suggest that this "tragedy of the commons" also accounts for the conflict between protecting endangered species and advancing the economic well-being of people.
A - The absence of the principles of property rights, free markets and individual accountability leads to all sorts of conflicts and invites exploitation. I believe the failure of our government to uphold those principles accounts for the contamination of our air, water and other precious resources.
Q - Do you think there is a conflict between the rights of people and the rights of the environment?
A - I think you are using the term "rights" very loosely. I do believe some environmental extremists have a death wish for mankind. I've heard phrases such as ÒAn ice age is coming and I welcome it as a much needed cleansing." Or, "I see no solution to our ruination of Earth except for a drastic reduction of the human population."
People who make these kinds of statements rejoice in famines, as Mother EarthÕs natural defense against overpopulation. I've even heard radicals proclaim the AIDS epidemic "the end of industrialism" which they see as the main cause of the environmental crisis. They consider AIDS a necessary solution.
Q - The environmental movement is not wholly the providence of bearded staff-wielding fanatics. Intelligent moderate statesmen are also players.
A - Like Brazil's Secretary of the Environment who told Senator Albert Gore's Climate Change Conference in the spring of 1990 that
The worst and most dangerous aspect of our modern economic thinking is the dogma of the necessity for continuous economic growth. Even the idea of sustainable growth is a contradiction in terms.
Let's hear it for the anti-growth forces in Washington, DC and around the world.
Q - Back to Brazil for a moment----the other side has its fanatics also. Gilberto Mestrinho, the governor of Brazil's Amazon region, who went on record in 1991 as a strong advocate of productive development of the rain forests. He said,
The center of ecology should be man. Ten million people can't be condemned to die of hunger so the animals and trees can grow. I wasn't elected by the trees.
A - You call that fanatacism? If you want fanatics, look no farther than Marin County. The Environmental Health Network in Marin County in the fall of 1991 demanded that supervisors ban the wearing of perfumes and colognes at public meetings.
Then there is Ingrid Newkirk, who in October 1990 was a guest on station WLS in Chicago. She made some pretty outrageous claims.
Q - Like what?
A - For starters, that it takes fifty acres of rain forests to make one hamburger and that 100 million gallons of water are used to process chickens in one day.
Q - At the opposite end, 85 percent of Bulgaria's river water and seventy percent of its farmland had been damaged by industrial wastes and pollutants before the people were able to topple the dictator that ruled with an iron hand for thirty-five years. A Rumanian chemical factory sent clouds of sodium and chlorine gas to a neighboring Bulgarian city (Ruse) finally the residents rioted.
A - The pollution of Eastern Europe is the result not of too much technology and development, but of far too little. As technology advances the invariable result is greater and greater value with less and less consumption of raw material.
Q - Americans are constantly accused of using far more than their proportional share of the earth's resources.
A - We use more energy than Japan and Germany for instance, because our living spaces are larger and driving distances are longer.
Q - One way to obtain cleaner air is to switch from fossil fuel to nuclear to produce electricity and then use electricity for all forms of heating and transportation.
A - Electricity could be used to desalinate sea water and purify polluted fresh water, it could be used to split water to produce hydrogen as a clean fuel for transportation along with the direct use of electric buses, trains and automobiles. Japan is already progressing along that line.
Q - We wouldn't have to use fossil fuels for anything.
A - They would still be needed to produce synthetics, plastics pesticides, fertilizers and pharmaceuticals.
Q - Have you heard of Green Seal?
A - No. What is it?
Q - It's a nonprofit organization, founded by an Earth Day organizer. The seal itself is kind of like Good House Keeping's "seal of approval" which used to be greatly coveted as a great marketing tool. Sales increased if the seal was affixed to products. Green Seal is hoping to have its stamp of approval mean something commercially when affixed to light bulbs, soap, recycled paper, motor oil, toilet and facial tissue and so forth.
A - I get it. They want to influence the market towards products which they deem to be the least destructive to the environment.
Q - Polls show 90 percent of women and 87 percent of men are willing to pay more for products and packaging that are good for the environment. The hottest words in advertising have become "recyclable", "biodegradable", recycled", environmentally friendly" and "compostable."
A - In Nov 1991, Rhode Island put the nation's first environmental labeling standards into effect. No longer can advertisers in that state proclaim something is "recyclable", it must adhere to a bunch of regulations and requirements. For instance there must be a program where consumers can in fact recycle something labeled "recyclable".
Q - I heard that California, Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York are working on similar regulations. The aim is to control what benefits can be claimed.
A - What about interstate commerce? How can goods be economically packaged if states all have their own particular standards?
Q - That's why the National Food Processors Association and ten other trade and advertising organizations want the FTC to define nationwide environmental marketing terms.
A - How does Green Seal stand on this?
Q - Green Seal and other environmental groups are opposed because that is the area they had hoped to carve out for themselves.
A - It seems like everyone is dying to control somebody else. I despise the idea of manipulating others or being manipulated by them.
Q - I heard Julian Simon of the University of Maryland speak before the Commonwealth Club on August 2, 1991. Are you familiar with his work?
A - I started corresponding with Professor Simon several years ago. I was first attracted by his views on immigration and have discovered over the years that we hold similar views in several other areas also.
Q - He brought up the infant mortality issue during his Commonwealth Club speech. His point was that focusing on the relative often leads us into thinking that things are pretty bad when actually things may be pretty good if seen from a long range perspective.
For example white infant mortality in 1915 was approximately 100 deaths per 1000 births and black infant mortality was 180 deaths per 1000 births. In 1991 white infant mortality was down to 9 deaths per 1,000 births and black infant mortality was down to 18 deaths per 1000 live births.
The infant mortality rate for both races has fallen to a small fraction of what it was 76 years earlier.
A - The need for that type of focus on long range thinking is one of the areas where I heartily agree with Professor Simon. By every important measure of human welfare things have improved over time and will continue to do so. It took thousands of years to increase man's life expectancy from the low twenties to the high twenties. Then in two hundred years life expectancy went from under thirty years to almost seventy-five years!
Q - But looking at the half empty portion of the glass, one might point out that the decrease in the death rate is one cause of our larger world population.
A - You're right. Instead of rejoicing, some governments have decided to deny families the choice of how many children to have. Instead the government makes the choice for, and in what is believed to be the best interest of citizens. Philosopher-kings have decided that fewer children will allow citizens to enjoy the gift of life more fully.
It was predicted that larger populations would lead to starvation, yet the price of food world wide is on a downward trend despite rising populations. Why?
Q - Because of increased productivity.
A - Exactly. Time and again the doomsayers have turned out to be wrong.
Metals, food and other natural resources have become more available rather than more scarce throughout history.
Famine was predicted for 1975 and instead there were gluts in the agricultural market.
Lines at the gas pumps were followed by the cheapest gasoline prices since the 1930s.
The Great Lakes are not dead; they offer better sport fishing than ever.
Pollutants, especially those that kill, are used less frequently in our cities.
Q - There are presently more people alive than ever before.
A - And better material conditions exist than ever before.
The Malthusian theory of increasing scarcity based on fixed resources has been discredited and needs to be replaced. As Professor Simon said,
More people and increased income, cause problems in the short run. This presents opportunity and prompts the search for solutions. In a free society, solutions are eventually found. And in the long run new developments leave us better off than if the problems had not arisen.
When faced with a shortage of resources, people create more and different resources.
Q - There's plenty of evidence to support that statement. In the 1600s the English feared deforestation because people were consuming too much firewood and so coal was substituted. In the 1800s they worried about a coal shortage and the British economist, William Stanley Jevons, discounted oil as unlikely to have much of an impact on energy.
A - But profit-minded people developed oil into a more desirable fuel than wood or coal ever was.
Individual entrepreneurs, not governments developed new technology. Entrepreneurs seized the opportunity, made mistakes and many risked and lost their capital on unprofitable attempts.
But since enough of them were investigating and risking some of them came upon sound and workable methods and produced what was needed by the public in all kinds of areas. In 1989 England was exporting both coal and oil.
Q - There was a whale oil crisis during the Civil War which provided the incentive for enterprising people to develop alternatives.
A - Innovators in Japan and South Africa are working with a new steel-making technique which promises to use less energy and emit fewer pollutants than conventional methods.
Q - How will it do that?
A - Apparently the polluting gases will be consumed when all the ingredients are heated in a sealed furnace at 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Q - Apparently America has no monopoly on enterprising people.
A - Nor are innovators restricted to any point in time.
Q - There are endless kinds and supplies of oil if you realize that oil is anything that burns or is greasy. Rocks can be turned into shale oil, sand into tar sands, we can get oil out of coal and we can grow oil with soybeans and grape seeds. Besides, we have 13 years worth of known oil reserves for the world and we've had that amount for the last 100 years.
A - We should celebrate our humanity and not apologize for it as so many environmentalists suggest. We alone of all the species on this earth have the ability and have used that ability to develop technology to cure disease, build and create wondrous things.
But there will always be those who prefer to scoff at and denigrate man's achievements. The Royal Society of London, the world's most prestigious body of scientists at the time, scoffed at electricity when the idea was first introduced. They claimed it wouldn't work and then feared if it did it was too much power for mankind to handle.
Q - I understand that Julian Simon originally worked in behalf of population control. Do you know what happened?
A - I believe he was converted by data collected by Nobel Prize winner Simon Kuznets in 1967 which showed there was no observed relationship between population growth and economic development.
He gathered data on a nation's rate of population and economic growth and saw that countries with high population growth also had the highest economic and standard of living growth, at least where there were incentives for working hard and taking risks.
He came to understand that economic liberty, respect for property and the fair and sensible rules of the market had to be part of the picture.
Q - I always thought the greater the population the more crowded the living.
A - We have more living space now than we did 20, 40 or even 100 years ago. Even agricultural land is becoming more abundant. Professor Simon says,
There's no physical limit to the number of human beings who can live long, healthy and well fed lives on this planet of ours. . .All the people in the world can live in luxury-sized apartments in 100-story-buildings in an area no larger than New York City. We have endless places to go. There is no known limit---especially not in energy, because nuclear power gives us an unlimited supply of energy at a constant or declining cost forever. Ultimately, cheap energy can provide all the desalinated water we want and all the land that we need, so that even this constraint is not upon us.
And it's true. The Statistical Abstract of the United States will show improvement in our water, air and pollution over the years rather than deterioration.
Q - What about the public feud between author Paul Ehrlich and Professor Simon?
A - I only know what I read and that's that Ehrlich bet that over a ten year period five natural resources would become more expensive as population grew and Simon bet they wouldn't ---- Simon won.
Population grew by more than 800,000,000 between 1980-1990 and the real (adjusted for inflation) price of just about any commodity fell including the five chosen for the bet; tin, chrome, tungsten, nickel and copper. Simon's point was that man's ingenuity will overcome any shortage and is the most certain source of value in the world.
Q - Didn't you say the danger from cutting the rain forests has been exaggerated?
A - According to United Nation's data, which has been gathered on deforestation over the past 50 years, there are no fewer trees on earth now than there were 50 years ago.
Gilberto Mestrinho Governor of Amazonas who I alluded to earlier, complains that environmentalists from other nations are interfering with the rights of the Brazilian people to develop their own land.
Q - But rain forests are supposed to be treasure troves of medicinal plants which may someday benefit all of mankind, if they are not lost to greedy developers.
A - Do you think the environmentalists would allow us to exploit the rain forest, even though the cause were humanitarian? They put up a pretty good fuss over the harvesting of the bark of the Pacific Yew, used to make Taxol, a new drug in the war against cancer.
Any harvest, even for medicinal purposes, is likely to interfere with the sex life of some reptile or rare bird or insect. I f I were you I wouldn't count on being able to derive much benefit from harvesting the rain forest no matter the reason.
Q - OK, what about the idea that the tropical rain forests are the "lungs of the world"?
A - You mean the rain forests are supposed to contribute an enormous amount of oxygen to our atmosphere. The truth is 90 percent of our oxygen supply comes from the world's oceans. If old trees were harvested before they went to waste and started decaying, a process which uses oxygen, then the rain forests might add to our world oxygen supply. As it is, the production of oxygen through photosynthesis and the depletion of oxygen through decay leaves a break even situation.
Q - You don't consider the rain forests to be beneficial in any way then?
A - If the forests were managed and young trees, which do produce large amounts of oxygen, were tended, there would be obvious benefits.
Q - Such as?
A - First, the increased supply of oxygen you hypothecated. Second, lumber, and perhaps useful ingredients for medicine, industry and science from harvesting the rain forests. Third, employment opportunities in the harvesting and tending of the forests and from its products. And finally, a higher standard of living for the world.
Q - What about man's role in causing the extinction of species?
A - Professor Simon demystifies the loss of species saying that the facts show that from 1600 to 1900 the observed rate of species extinction, mostly birds, was about one every four years; and that the observed rate from about 1900 to the present is about one per year, with no observed increase in the rate over the 20th century.
Q - That's contrary to everything I've heard.
A - I can't help that. Other estimates are speculation and scenarios geared to alarm the public.
The Interior Department said at the end of 1991 that 41 percent of the 581 plants and animals on its list of endangered species are stable or increasing in number; 38 percent are in decline, the status of 19 percent is unknown and 2 percent are thought to be extinct.
Q - You originally mentioned that you share Professor Simon's (Julian Simon, University of Maryland; see file 2 for more information) views regarding immigration. Most people, especially during a recession and especially in a border state like California, are anxious to curtail immigration. In fact immigrants have recently become the scape goat for a lot of our domestic problems.
A - There are always burdens with more people in the very short run but it is not long before these people give back more than they take. The average immigrant family pays more in taxes and uses less welfare services than does the average native family. Immigrants usually arrive when they are young, strong and producing.
Q - They also cause crime.
A - Professor Simon has some interesting things to say about crime. He claims the murder rate in England in 1300 was ten times higher than it is now; it has been declining for centuries. We have ups and downs but here also we need to develop the ability to take the very long view so we don't get fooled by temporary aberrations.
Q - I don't know why you're bringing up England. Neither country is a paradise, yet you make it sound like we are living in the best of all possible worlds. Are you aware that the entire world is facing some very serious problems?
A - Dennis Avery, author of Global Food Progress 1991 says we could feed another two billion people right now, on the good land diverted from crops by government policies just in the USA and Argentina.
If the Third World adopted the latest high-yield farm technologies, including hybrid rice, high-protein corn and acid-tolerant seed varieties for a billion acres of currently barren acid soil savannahs, we could feed another four billion people.
Q - I wonder what he would say about the broadcasts last year on public TV under the title The Race To Save The Planet?
A - I know for a fact he wasn't a fan. Mr. Avery insists that instead of world food production falling behind population growth, per-capita food supplies just in the Third World have increased 25 percent above subsistence levels since 1960 and Third World birth rates are slowing more rapidly than anyone had predicted---food production continues to rise at twice the rate of population!
Q - I've got to admit that half the world's population was threatened by hunger when I was young, whereas today in most years, 3 to 5 percent is threatened. Thanks to science-based agriculture the same farm land now feeds twice the number of people as it did in 1960.
A - The residues from today's pesticides are less toxic to humans or wildlife than are mustard or pickles.
Q - I've heard criticism of Mr. Avery's optimistic estimations of our ability to handle any population boom that is likely to materialize. He may not have considered the possibility of advanced technology having to deal with natural catastrophes, such as pests, disease, climate change and so forth.
I guess you know that Lester Brown, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, says our gains in agriculture are at the expense of mining underground water and destroying topsoil.
A - He is silent on the progress we have made. The truth is conservation tillage has cut soil-erosion rates in half while alley cropping in West Africa has virtually eliminated the need for slash-and-burn farming. In the Amazon rain forest, a legume called Kudzu can cut the environmental impact of slash-and-burn farming by 90 percent.
Q - Farmers waste a third of the world's water with flood irrigation.
A - New sprinkler, drip and trailing-tube irrigation systems could double water-use efficiency. Soil erosion problems abound in areas where more people are fed via traditional agriculture.
Q - I must admit I'm in awe of genetic engineering with its promise of miracles like the production of 30 million to 40 million tons of feed corn a year from laboratory bacteria.
The forest products we need can be produced on less acreage because cloning and tissue culture can now quadruple tree yields. These food and environmental gains are published in the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and numerous other reputable studies.
A - But who tells us about Tanzania doubling its grain production? Those pushing zero growth and expansion of wilderness areas are hoping to back us into a corner. They want us to see the choice as either economic stagnation or suppression of the population.
Q - What about the other side? Farmers like new technology if it adds to their profits, but not if it permits farmers in other countries to produce more. Even the researchers applaud the fear mongers hoping they will generate more research funds.
A - The trouble is good scientists dodge headlines and leave the field wide open for those who would play on the public's fears with their campaigns, newsletters, memberships and so forth. If the public believes farm science is bad we could lose momentum and progress against hunger and economic growth in the world would abate. This would threaten the environment and wildlife more than any pesticide.
Q - There's no doubt that demands on the world's farm resources are rising.
A - Just during the nineties world food demand will rise 18 percent. Add the demand for improvements in diet and agricultural resources will face a demand to increase output by 30 to 50 percent during the 1990s according to Mr. Avery. We need to keep agricultural technology flowing to Asia, especially.
Q - I guess innovation is the ultimate answer to any threatened shortages.
A - Spoken like a true American. Innovation has always been our hallmark. Electricity was brought to rural America in the 1930s and relieved the farmer and his family of much manual labor and gave us the modern problem of agricultural surpluses.
Over abundance of food is a new problem. During the 6,000 years of recorded human history food surpluses were unheard of until recently. In 1910 25 percent of a farmers land went to feed farm animals--one farmer could feed 7.1 people Today one farmer feeds 59 people.
A team of horses could plow one acre of land a day, today a tractor plows 35. In 1910 that acre yielded 26 bushels of corn, today the same acre yields 97 bushels.
Without modern technology, instead of the four million farmers that grow our food today we would need 31 million. We have only 4 million horses and mules and it would take 20 years to breed the 61 million that would be required to farm without electricity.
With the help of man-made pesticides and chemicals, in the 1980s farmers were producing 275 100-pound sack of potatoes per acre compared to the 75 they were able to produce on good soil with the help of only animal fertilizer in the 1920s.
Q - So much for proposals to return to pre-industrial back-to-nature living.
A - Innovation is still the answer. For instance, General Electric sees heavy plastics as a replacement for metal, wood, ceramics, glass and traditional plastics. Valox is made of 50-75 percent mineral compounds. It can be used for floors, roof tiles, kitchen sinks and other plumbing fixtures. It's recyclable.
Q - I agree that the "can do" attitude that is so much a part of our heritage should be encouraged. In fact it has to be encouraged because there seems to be a natural inclination in man to respond to nay-sayers and doom-and-gloomers.
A - It's almost as if we like to be scared. Perhaps when ignorant opponents of all man's efforts to improve human life on this earth insist that anything man-made is inferior and even harmful to nature, it is nothing more than a throw back to our earliest ancestors and their old metaphysical anxieties and superstitions
Q - We're easily stampeded into insecurity and fear. That's why bold and optimistic leaders are so essential.
A - I believe scientists, with their extraordinary confidence in the power of reason to solve problems, have a role to play in reassuring the people that a better way of life and cleaner environment is possible.
Q - They, of all people, should be convinced that man has been and will continue to be a catalyst for good and a problem solver rather than the cause of this planet's deterioration.
A - Today we are able to control soil erosion and avoid experiences like the dust bowl of the 1930s. We generally attribute this ability to contour plowing, better soil management and windbreaks.
Q - What's wrong with that?
A - Nothing is wrong with it, only we forget to recognize that herbicides control weeds and make disturbance of the soil unnecessary and that may be the most important aspect of controlling soil erosion.
Q - I think we have another problem that bears investigating. There seems to be a need to place blame---to make somebody pay.
A - Dixy Lee Ray, former governor of Washington, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, assistant secretary of state at the U.S. Bureau of Oceans and member of the faculty at the University of Washington wrote a book in 1990 (Trashing The Planet ) which has provided me with a lot of scientific expertise to back up the general knowledge I have gathered over the years.
When it comes right down to it, lay-folks like us are forced to listen to the varying views of scientists and choose the most persuasive. Dr. Ray gives added credence to the viewpoints that had already won my respect and support. On page 51 of her latest book she says,
Accusations of harm or wrongdoing, whether supported by reliable data or not, tend to carry great authority. The follow-up sober analysis and careful evaluation of data by scientists is frequently ignored or drowned out by the activist environmentalists, who shout "Cover-up!" and "Whitewash!".
To illustrate her point she talked about Dr. Paul Muller who in 1948 was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for his development of the insecticide DDT. DDT was widely hailed as a historic event in the field of world wide public health and agriculture. No harm has ever been demonstrated to have been caused by DDT, according to Dr. Ray. In fact the 130,000 men who were exposed to the highest concentrations of the insecticide as sprayers during the malarial spraying programs showed absolutely no ill effects. Under normal environmental conditions, DDT loses its toxicity to insects in a few days.
Q - But it was overused.
A - And its overuse resulted in its being detected in soil, water, fish, fowl and domestic animals, and even in man.
Q - What about the charges against DDT made in the seventies by Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring ?
A - Dr. Ray claims Ms. Carson created an unprecedented hysteria which led to the banning of DDT. Dr. Ray maintains that none of the the charges which led to the ban could be scientifically substantiated.
Q - What was charged?
A - The three main charges were that DDT could lead to the extinction of certain bird populations, that it could never be eliminated from the environment and that it might cause cancer in humans.
Q - I've seen all kinds of nature films about the thin shelled eggs that resulted from birds ingesting insects, worms or vegetation sprayed with DDT.
A - According to Dr. Ray, repetition is the only thing going for those "threatened-species" stories. Thin-shelled eggs were evident before DDT was discovered and could be caused by numerous things. In attempts to place the blame on DDT, pheasants and quail were purposely fed food containing 6,000 to 20,000 times more DDT than they would normally consume in their own search for food.
Q - What happened?
A - No shell-thinning was reported. Dr. Ray says the Audubon Society's own records show that many bird populations increased during the years of heaviest DDT use. Robins, who were said to be doomed by DDT enjoyed a 12 percent increase in their population between 1941 and 1971. As for the extinction predicted for the osprey and peregrine falcon,
At the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, annual surveys show 191 ospreys in 1946, compared to 600 in 1970. . . . For the peregrine falcon, the numbers fluctuated from a low of 14 in 1965 to a high of 32 in 1969. Dr. Joseph Hickey, an authority on peregrines, testified at the DDT hearings that the falcon population had been declining since 1890.
Q - Why?
A - The decline in peregrines was said to be linked to lack of nesting sites and prey.
You know it's amazing that this morning I was turning channels on the TV and I came upon a segment of MacNeil/Lehrer in which our national parks were being praised.
The narrator mentioned that visitors could view some newly hatched peregrine falcons through ranger provided telescopes and went on to say that everyone is aware that DDT caused the thinning of these birds' eggs and almost led to their extinction. There was no hint that his statement was controversial---it was given, and accepted almost universally as a fact!
Q - Whether or not DDT caused the thinning of birds' eggs, you've got to admit that linking DDT with cancer is a pretty serious charge.
A - The study relating to humans was unrealistic. The amounts of DDT fed to mice and extrapolated to humans were far in excess of any concentrations that would conceivably be ingested outside a laboratory.
DDT is not a carcinogen. Laboratory studies have reported liver deformations in mice, but not in any other experimental animal (including rats). This is the basis for the charge that DDT is 'cancer causing." The doses, given by injection, required to cause the deformation of a mouse's liver were about 100,000 times higher than any possible ingestion from DDT residues in food.
Here again deaths from liver cancer decreased by 30 percent during the years of heaviest DDT use in this country.
Q - Looks like a reversed correlation!
What about the charges by Paul Ehrlich that DDT in sea water would kill all algae and deplete 40 percent of the earth's oxygen?
A - I refer you once again to Dixy Lee Ray's book, page 72, and warn you that she refers to Mr. Ehrlich as the "butterfly specialist" and an "environmental guru".
Q - If what you say, or rather what Dr. Ray claims is true, I don't understand how or why DDT was banned.
A - It may have been political shenanigans. 150 scientists testified against the ban and 300 technical documents proved their point. In 1968 EPA head, William Ruckelshaus, supported DDT. Why then did he all but ban its use in 1971? Since 1971 it has not been permitted unless an essential public purpose if first proved. Dr. Ray thought it worth mentioning that
When he (Ruckelshaus) left the EPA, he signed membership solicitation letters for the Environmental Defense Fund, the organization that led the fight against DDT.
Dr Ray goes on to say what may be the most important thing in her highly informative and ardently recommended book:
The most important fallout from the Ruckelshaus decision on DDT was that it gave credibility to pseudoscience, it created an atmosphere in which scientific evidence can be pushed aside by emotion, hysteria, and political pressure.
Q - Like the accusations against DDT, no harm has been substantiated as coming from the use of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls--chemical compounds used as coolants, insulators and lubricants.) but they too have been banned.
A - PCBs have been used commercially since 1929 and permits were issued allowing manufacturers to use rivers and waterways for disposal in the early years. That meant that eventually harmless traces of PCBs could be detected in fish.
Q - If they are so harmless then why were they banned and when?
A - They were banned in an emotional response to a 1968 incident in Japan which unfairly targeted PCBs as the cause of contaminated rice which caused illness among those who consumed it.
The banning in this country cost utilities millions of dollars to convert their equipment to other less efficient and effect insulating substances.
Consumers suffer as fire retardent PCBs were replaced by these other substances which result in transformer fires from time to time. To top it off, there are bacteria that degrade PCB and are able to reduce concentrations in water or soil by 60 to 65 percent every twenty days.
Q - If that's the case, why aren't PCBs reinstated?
A - It is not easy for bureaucracies to admit mistakes. In fact it might be easier to turn an ocean liner in a small lake than to get the EPA to reverse its decision. But it's certainly worth giving it a try.
Q - At least these examples prove your point that centralized power and excessive regulation by bureaucrats is too often costly and counter- productive.
A - I'll continue to make that point. The worst idea in quite sometime emerged the end of 1990 in an EPA report.
Beginning in 1995 government allocates gasoline allowances to distributors based on baseline year usage of petroleum-based gasoline. Distributors may only sell gasoline in amounts for which they have allowances.
Q - Rationing?
A - By any other name. . . The goal was to cut petroleum-based transportation fuel to "acceptable" levels by 2005.
Q - The EPA used the same approach to reduce lead and acid rain.
A - EPA has suggested adding oxygenate additives to gasoline--their specifications to be worked out, supposedly. Forget private companies---EPA will design fuels without regard to bothersome things like cost or economics.
Q - I understand that scientists dispute whether oxygenated fuels are in fact "cleaner" but no one disputes that they are much more expensive.
A - But EPA wasn't through. It wanted to give orders to car manufacturers: "90 percent of all new cars and light trucks beginning in 1995 would be required to be capable of operating on more than one fuel type." As the Wall Street Journal put it in a December 11, 1990 editorial: "A bureaucracy's instinct is always to command and control, with itself manning the levers."
Q - You're talking about the Clean Air Act now, aren't you?
A - The Clean Air Act was rushed through at the very end of the 101st Congress. It is estimated to cost industry $25 billion a year. It purports to clear the skies of smog, acid rain and toxic fumes. The House wanted $250 million over 56 years for extra unemployment benefits and job retraining for displaced workers, like coal miners who would be forced out of their jobs if the legislation passed.
Q - It sounds like they wanted to buy them off!
A - Senator Byrd, from the coal mining state of West Virginia certainly did, but he didn't get his way. The years of debate over the Clean Air Act saw many amendments come and go. In the end legislators claimed to have "made more concessions to industry" than they thought "appropriate.
Q - Just what exactly is in the bill?
A - It's almost easier to tell you what's not included in the legislation. The bill amounts to 1,100 pages. The "highlights" published by Congressional Quarterly (11-24-90) take up approximately forty 8 X11 small print pages.
I suggest you consult your local library for details as I only intend to give sketchy accounts and touch on proposals--some passed and some failed--- in order to further prove the point that centralized power and excessive regulation by bureaucrats is too often costly and counter-productive.
Q - OK, how about a brief run down---your own highlights?
A - The Bill called for tighter controls on tail-pipe exhaust which could add approx $100 to the cost of a new automobile. Cars would have to emit 60 percent less nitrogen oxide and 40 percent fewer hydrocarbons and emission-control equipment would have to last twice as long as previously mandated or 10 years or 100,000 miles.
More studies and incentives for cleaner-burning fuels were part of the legislation. Utility rates should increase as restrictions on coal-fired plants are implemented in an attempt to reduce acid rain. There is a pollution-credit trading system.
Q - What is a "pollution-credit trading system?
A - Utilities that make extra-deep cuts in their emissions earn pollution credits valued at up to $500 for each ton of reduction. They can stockpile these credits or sell them to other companies who find it extremely difficult to reduce their emissions to the mandated level. Subsidies were rejected for the dirtiest plants in the Midwest and so those rate payers are going to suffer the most.
Q - You said this would cost the economy $25 billion a year?
A - No one really knows. I've heard the economic costs of the legislation could be over $50 billion and that's not counting its depressing effect on the economy.
Q - The whole thing sounds like industrial policy to me---environmental industrial policy.
A - Senator Symms of Idaho is one of only ten Senators who took a rather heroric stand against the bill.
Q - I assume you mean heroric in the sense that Idaho is an outdoorsman's state and it could be disastrous when your opponent is able to claim you voted against "Clean Air".
A - You've got it. But in this case his fellow senator from Idaho, James McClure also voted against the legislation. Senator Symms didn't mince words about his reasons either. He intimated that the legislation definitely flunked any cost-benefit tests. In fact he went further and I quote:
This is a blueprint for a mass of regulations coming out of Washington to be imposed on our people. . . All through the deliberations on this bill, the Congress has ignored the voices of warning against a bill that is so costly that probably it will do more damage to the economy than the good it may do for the air.
Q - And I know you agree. I'm curious about the other dissenters?
A - Those who opposed the legislation were evenly divided; five Republicans and five Democrats. Joining the two Republican Senators from Utah were the two from another far western state, Senators Garn and Hatch of Utah. The fifth Republican was Jesse Helms of North Carolina. John Glenn of Ohio was joined by the two Senators from Illinois, Dixon and Simon and the two from West Virginia, Rockefeller and Byrd to complete the five Democrats.
Q - Of course a couple of the Democrats had little choice because of the importance coal plays in the lives of their constituents.
A - Majority Leader, George Mitchell of Maine, a state not dependent on coal was as effusive in his praise for the legislation as Senator Symms was against it. He pontificated, "With this bill we are once again moving forward in a realistic and effective way."
Q - I heard about a section of the Clean Air Act which allows a private citizen to sue if a permit is given to an industry allowing it to pollute and the citizen objects. I would think this would create an atmosphere of apprehension which would dampen investment.
A - An atmosphere of uncertainty is always and everywhere detrimental to business and therefore harmful to a nation's economy. A section of Title VII of the Clean Air Act
Allows the EPA administrator to pay a reward, not to exceed $10,000 to any person who furnishes information or service that leads to a criminal conviction or a judicial or administrative civil penalty for any violation of provisions regarding attainment and maintenance of national air quality standards, control of hazardous air pollution, permits or acid deposition control. . . .
Citizens would be authorized to sue to enforce the terms and conditions of any permits, as well as the requirement to obtain a permit. . . .Courts would be permitted to award up to $100,000 to projects that would enhance protection of the public health or the environment.
A section of Title VIII of the Clean Air Act
Requires the EPA administrator within six months and every three years thereafter to review and if necessary, revise the methods used to estimate the quantity of emissions of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides from sources of such air pollution (including area sources and mobile sources).
The administrator must establish emission factors for sources for which no such methods have been previously established. In addition, the administrator must permit any person to demonstrate improved emissions estimating techniques, and following approval of such techniques after appropriate public participation, the administrator must authorize their use.
So I ask you, why would private industry invest time and money on researching and developing anything if requirements could so easily be changed by forces outside the control of the firm?
Q - I can certainly understand how such regulations would act as a disincentive to private creativity and initiative.
A - As a further depressant to the economy, gas stations, dry cleaners and other chemical based industries are facing stricter clean up mandates. A system of new permits and requirements was established by the Act.
As many as 150,000 American businesses, from heavy manufacturing to small print shops will have to secure specific EPA permits for every point source of one or more of 191 pollutants. New permits are required for any change in production processes. New products must pass through EPA filters.
Q - Talk about micromanagement!
A - You haven't heard anything yet. Company officials could be subject to prison sentences of up to 450 years and unlimited fines at $25,000 per day. Company informants and competitors are offered up to $10,000 in bounties for fingering suspects.
Q- Prison for what? Suspected of what?
A - Obviously for failing to meet permit standards and detailed compliance timetables.
Q - You've got to be kidding!
A - You wish! Any activist group can sue to countermand permits even after they are granted. This sort of 'pollution prevention' could signal the death knell for competitive economic growth according to Ernie Rosenberg of Occidental Petroleum, a former EPA regulator and one of industry's most respected lobbyists.
Q - What about those industries where changes are made constantly. Process or product changes are made monthly or even weekly in order to meet Asian competition in the aerospace, electronics and photographic industries. This law will make it impossible.
A - You want to talk anti-competitive? Pollution control mandated by this legislation will cost 2.3 percent of GNP. That's three times the burden borne by Western European and Japanese manufacturers.
Q - I don't get it? Are we trying to commit suicide as a nation?
A - Many people believe Clean Air legislation in the 1970s worked and was well worth it but we have reached the point of diminishing returns. It was cost effective when we had to pay less than $600 a ton to cut the first 96 percent of tail-pipe emissions from autos, but squeezing out the last 4 percent on new models will cost $13,000 per ton and will slow down fleet turnover by raising car prices and make ozone pollution worse.