In yesterday’s excerpt, Julian Simon pointed out that “the worst pollutions of the past were diseases caused by microorganisms, and spread by contaminated drinking water and by airborne germs and insects.” Today’s excerpt from Wilfred Becherman’s Through Green-Colored Glasses: Environmentalism Reconsidered shows how this is still true today in the Third World, and why it should be ignored by so many environmentalists.
In the richer countries of the world, it is at least understandable that important sections of the community should question whether priority should be given to further increases in the output of goods and services. But for the vast majority of the world’s population it does not require much imagination of knowledge of their terrible poverty to rule out the question of whether further economic growth is desirable for them. Nevertheless, it is often argued that the developing countries should not make the same “mistakes” as were made by the now advanced countries. They are advised not to pursue economic growth in spite of its adverse social or environmental effects, and not to fall into the trap of “rising expectations.” Furthermore, we often hear that if the developing countries seek to achieve standards of living comparable with those now enjoyed by the advanced countries there simply will not be enough resources to go around.
One conclusion that might appear to follow from these pessimistic doctrines is that, because the rich countries of the world can hardly be expected to reduce their levels of material prosperity, the poor countries must not be encouraged to believe that they too can aspire to such levels of prosperity. They must therefore accustom themselves to the idea of giving priority to environmental preservation rather than economic growth. Of course, it is bad luck for them that the point at which economic growth has to stop should just have arrived near the end of the 20th century, when other countries have already achieved a certain affluence but before they have had the opportunity to do likewise themselves.
This view, not surprisingly, has always been rejected by the developing countries. As far back as 1972, the so-called “Founex report,” drawn up by a group of experts convened by the United Nations to prepare a report on Development and the Environment for the 1972 UN World Conference on the Human Environment, pointed out that, although “the developing countries would clearly wish to avoid, as far as is feasible, the mistakes and distortions that have characterized the patterns of developmental problems in the industrialized nations… the major environmental problem of developing countries are essentially of a different kind: they are predominantly problems that reflect the poverty and very lack of development of their societies. They are problems, in other words, of both rural and urban poverty. In both the towns and in the countryside, not merely the ‘quality of life’ but life itself is endangered by poor water, housing, sanitation, and nutrition, by sickness and disease.”
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It’s now all but certain that the ethanol tax credit will expire at the end of the year, and the ethanol producers continue to claim credit for “giving it up” despite that it was obviously lost due to larger political considerations, and the fact that they lobbied initially for its extension and then eventually for a substitute which would have still funneled money into their industry. The tariff on ethanol imports also expires at the end of the year, and is likely to expire, though a bill was just introduced to extend it. It has no chance of passing through normal legislative means but its not impossible for it to be attached to larger omnibus bills in order to appease ethanol interests.
There are a few problems here. First, restrictions on trade are not normally good, but the fact that much of ethanol consumption is due to the renewable fuel standard mandate (and not market forces) complicates things. If imports of sugarcane ethanol are merely going to cut down on corn ethanol consumption/production, then it seems that the removal of the trade barrier would be a neutral/good thing. However, if imports of sugarcane ethanol require that Americans purchase additional ethanol relative to a baseline with the tariff, then an argument could be made for keeping the tariff. There are also other longer term political considerations: if sugarcane ethanol is kept out, the corn ethanol folks might lobby to lift the cap on corn ethanol and allow it to qualify as an advanced biofuel. Or, Congress might scrap the advanced biofuel RFS altogether as cellulosic ethanol is yet to exist.
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For years the Endangered Species Act (ESA) has been used to block development and economic growth. But on December 1, 2011, people and jobs were given a small victory.
Midday, Thursday, December 1, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced a 6-month extension for the final determination for the proposed listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard (also known as the sand dune lizard). This may sound insignificant to those not impacted by previous ESA listing decisions or those not engaged in this fight, but it is surely something to cheer about in an era of bad economic news. (In this case, the proposed ESA listing of the dunes sagebursh lizard has the potential to “decimate” a large percentage of America’s oil and gas production.) Additionally, it represents a rare instance of bipartisan action and Congress doing the right thing.
One year ago, the FWS published their intention to consider the proposed listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard as an endangered species under the ESA. This set into place a year-long process of public hearings, data gathering, and citizen rallies.
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A rare moment of common sense rang supreme in the bill markup with the bipartisan approval of Kristi Noem’s (R-SD) Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011 (H.R. 1633) by the House Energy and Commerce committee on 33 to 16 vote. This bill prevents EPA from regulating particulate matter (PM) with an aerodynamic diameter greater than 2.5 micrometers under section 109 of the Clean Air Act, limited to one year starting from the date the bill is passed. EPA’s regulation would be exempt where this PM standard is already regulated by the state or local government. The agency would have to prove coarse particulate matter poses a serious health risk; if EPA were to initiate a new PM standard related to farm dust, it would have to pass a cost-benefit test.
However, leading up to this triumph in the interest of rural America, several of the Democrats’ platforms were armed with ironic and ignorant castigation, regardless of the amendment made in the name of the “overly broad” term of “farm dust,” or “nuisance dust.”
From the genesis of the bill’s introduction, Democrats have had issue with the definition of “farm dust.” In the Section 3(c) of the initial bill, “nuisance dust” is defined as particulate matter “(1) generated from natural sources, unpaved roads, agricultural activities, earth moving, or other activities typically conducted in rural areas; or (2) consisting primarily of soil, other natural or biological materials, windblown dust, or some combination thereof.” To appease the concern over the vague language, an amendment was successfully passed, sharpening the term so that nuisance dust “(3) is not emitted directly into the ambient air from combustion, such as exhaust from combustion engines and emissions from stationary combustion processes.” This addition clearly excludes fossil fuel combustions such as coal combustion residuals from the definition of farm dust.
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In this excerpt from The Ultimate Resource 2, brilliant resource economist Julian Simon explains why environmental degradation is not a continuous process. Rather, he demonstrates why prosperity protects the environment.
On April 19, 1970, at the time of the first Earth Day demonstrations, the top-of-page headline story in the Chicago Tribune was “The Pollution of Earth: ‘I’m Scared,'” with the subheadline “Air, Sea and Land–All Being Strangled.” The story was typical of headlines all across the country: “‘I’m scared,’ said Joseph Sauris, 16, a sophomore at Maine East Township High School, Park Ridge…. ‘I don’t like the idea of leaving a dead world to my children. That might sound like a cliche, but it may be the truth someday.’”
Today, a quarter-century later, people still believe that the earth is being strangled. But what are these deadly substances that are supposedly killing the planet? Almost without exception, the purported pollutions that have most scared the public in the past few decades – Alar, dioxin, acid rain, and a large number of others ranging back to DDT – have turned out to be destructive false alarms. Yet the alarms have been much louder than the later all-clears; this contributes to the public’s impression that pollution is becoming worse rather than improving.
The worst pollutions of the past were diseases caused by microorganisms, and spread by contaminated drinking water and by airborne germs and insects…. Pollution used to mean such phenomena as human excrement floating in rivers everywhere, as it still does in India and Thailand (and I’m sure many other countries), and as it did in the Hudson River off Manhattan when I was a young man. When I was in the Navy in the 1950s, there were few harbors in the world that were not completely foul, and it was always disgusting to see native kids diving into that mess to fetch the coins the sailors and tourists would throw near the docks for amusement.
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Congressional Republicans Move on Keystone Pipeline
President Barack Obama’s announcement last month that he would delay making a decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline until after the 2012 election is provoking strong opposition in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and 36 Republican co-sponsors introduced a bill on Wednesday, 30th November, that would require the President to approve the project within sixty days unless he decides that it would not be in the national interest.
Representative Lee Terry (R-Neb.) introduced a bill on Friday, 2nd December, that would transfer the decision from the State Department to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and give FERC a thirty-day deadline to issue the permit after final agreement has been reached between the State of Nebraska and Trans Canada Corporation, the company that would build the pipeline, on a new route that goes around Nebraska’s Sand Hills.
Terry introduced his bill at a press conference just before the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on it. He said that House Speaker John Boehner was considering including the bill in a larger package supported by President Obama and Senate Democrats that would extend unemployment benefits and the payroll tax cut. Including the Keystone bill in the larger bill would make it much harder for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to block in the Senate and for President Obama to veto.
Rep. Terry has been a strong backer of the 1,700 mile pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to U. S. refineries in the Gulf, even while most of his state’s political establishment has objected to the route. That dispute has now apparently been resolved. The pipeline would carry over 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the oil sands in northeast Alberta and from the Bakken field in North Dakota. Bakken production is going up rapidly, and much of the oil is currently being transported by rail to refineries in the lower Midwest.
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It’s no secret that actors have superhero-sized egos – especially when they actually play a superhero. Case in point: Mark Ruffalo, who picked up an Academy Award nomination for his role in last year’s Oscar-bait The Kids Are All Right, and who has now thrown himself into the role of his career – The Incredible Hulk.
Ruffalo will be the latest actor to portray Marvel Comics’ Jolly Green Giant in next year’s big budget spectacular, The Avengers, which will bring the cinematic versions of Marvel’s characters, including Robert Downey, Jr.’s Iron Man, together to save Earth from an intergalactic menace.
But Ruffalo the actor has an enemy in his crosshairs more insidious than any supervillain: Hydraulic fracturing. Yep, the process by which natural gas is extracted from rock via pressurized fluid, commonly known as “fracking,” has aroused the especial ire of the environmentalists, Ruffalo included. On November 30th The Capitol reported:
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In the wake of EPA’s announcement that it intends to regulate how drillers dispose of the millions of gallons of wastewater (or flowback water) created by shale gas production, the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee’s recent hearing on the issue focused on how such added regulation will negatively impact the American economy: “Ensuring Regulatory Approaches That Will Help Protect Jobs and Domestic Energy Production.” This added federal regulation can only be seen in the wasteful light of a phantom problem.
According to E&E News, there are currently no national standards set for the disposal of shale gas drilling wastewater; dumping it into rivers and streams is prohibited. States currently have the jurisdiction of choosing what drilling regulations to adopt. To Representative Tim Bishop’s (D-NY) question of why a national minimum standard would not succeed, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Michael Krancer shot back: “Because of our long history of oil and gas development and comprehensive regulatory structure, Pennsylvania does not need intervention to ensure an appropriate balance between resources development and environmental protection is struck.”
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Yesterday’s and Monday’s excerpts argued that we shouldn’t fear climate change. Steven Pinker argued that even if climate change causes resource scarcity, it won’t lead to violent conflicts over those resources. Matt Ridley argued that a warmer world might actually be good for people. Today’s excerpt from former President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus’s Blue Planet in Green Shackles argues similarly that we shouldn’t fear global warming because people 100 years from now will be far richer and therefore, capable of adapting to new changes.
Blue Planet in Green Shackles was published by CEI in 2008
If we look to the future and any problems that may possibly arise (including environmental ones) through the eyes of an economist, we have to mention the income, or wealth effect, on the one hand, and the effect of technological progress, on the other. We also have to consider the incredible human ability to adapt to new, unexpected events and circumstances.
It is perhaps needless to talk extensively about the fact that people’s income and wealth will radically increase and that—as a result—their behavior and structure of their demand for material and nonmaterial goods will change as well, not to speak about the immense technological progress that will occur. We all intuitively feel this is the case, but not all of us draw the right conclusions from it.
In “Costs and Benefits of Greenhouse Gas Reduction,” Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas C. Schelling (1996) ponders how the world will look in 75 years. To get an idea of what the future might bring, he thought of looking back 75 years, to 1920. Interestingly enough, he says that in 1920—when paved roads were uncommon in the United States—mud was the biggest climate-related problem. Pure mud. Schelling adds, “It might not have occurred to us in 1920 that by 1995 most of the nation’s roads would have been paved solid.” This conclusion is not in any way trivial. I am convinced that as a conceptual construct it can be applied to the whole environmental problem.
What will the world be like in 100 years, assuming the expected economic growth? We do not know, but surely we will be miles away from where we are today. Many “roads will be paved solid.” It is thus a fatal mistake to base our thinking about the situation 100 years from now on the knowledge of today’s technologies and wealth.
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