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Great short article by Mark Perry on his blog “Carpe Diem” wherein he displays the inherent propaganda-esque nature of the state and media. Whether by design or serendipity, in the 1970s US citizens were being warned of death by the thousands and a life expectancy of 42 if they didn’t lower carbon emmissions and step off the economic growth pedal. Ring any bells with today’s fear mongering by the IPCC, governments and their payroll scientists of the impending doom brought about by climate change and global warming? You can’t argue with the data, can you? In the words of Al Gore: “the consensus is formed and doubters are wrong.”
40 Years Later: Air Quality Has Never Been Better, by Mark Perry
“Air pollution is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich in an interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
“By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…” Life magazine, January 1970.“Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.The world will be “…eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.
“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.
galty,
whilst i appreciate the sentiments that probably motivated you to post this – cautioning against unreasoned alarmism (a blade that cuts both ways, remember) – i think that it is a poor piece of thinking that does not serve your blog very well.
there is much to say about the actual inferences made here (people were wrong before, they MUST be wrong again), but perhaps the most important aspect to consider is that proactive steps were taken (largely by the US Government) to avoid the negative outcomes of air pollution.
in the interest of keeping my post short, i leave the final word with the following comment left under mark perry’s actual blog post by one reader:
“It’s inappropriate, even dishonest, to leave out any mention of the Clean Air Act in such a post.
Yes, gov’t enacted a law, companies reacted, and the world didn’t end.
Too bad both sides keep pushing their agenda to irrational extremes.”
Stickman, constructive criticism appreciated.
While I admit neither myself nor Perry mentioned the US govt’s Clean Air Act, which may have contributed to the cleaner air breathed in the US compared with 40 years ago, perhaps my most important point is that with all this fear-mongering, it didn’t solve the problem. The unintended consequences of the initial intervention now requires additional intervention to solve what the initial intervention caused: it has exacerbated the problem, and brought about the need for even more intervention. 1) The US industrial base has shifted offshore and on a net-basis the world’s air is no cleaner. 2) The US must now through the IPCC try and enforce a global accord to control the ‘problem’. 3) The US must also now pressure other countries to let the Fed alone debase the value of their currency in isolation relative to the rest of the world, to try and return their manufacturing jobs lost owing to regulations on business such as the Clean Air Act.
It is this principle which I want to highlight, that there is this continuous fear mongering by the state to push through their policies. And that each policy requires another to rectify mistakes of the previous one, so it all just snowballs and the lies just become bigger. Think how the world economy would ‘collapse’ if the Fed didn’t print money to bail their mates out. Think how now authorities say the EUR would ‘collapse’ if the ECB didn’t print money to bail all their weak sovereigns out. More of the same propaganda.
galtness, thanks for the response… however, i have to say then that you are at least being very inconsistent. again, i understand the need to caution against unbridled alarmism, but you are weirdly conflating a number of different issues.
what ‘problem’ wasn’t solved? what additional interventions are you talking about? are you referring to SO2, NOx, etc, or are you now referring to CO2? with regards to the former, the US now has much cleaner air, so that seems a fairly positive result from where i’m sitting. crucially, technology has improved as costs of pollution were internalised and societies all over the world benefit from these advancements. (cars aren’t going to regress back from the standard of having catalytic converters any time soon…)
with regards to shifting pollution offshore. yes, quite possibly so, but this is entirely consistent with growth theory and environmental economics theory (e.g. the environmental kuznet’s curve). don’t you also think that any failures in net global pollution reduction – though i’m not sure which specific gases you are referring to? – are largely a function of the huge (new) economic growth in china, india and company?
i do think that you have somewhat unwittingly hit the nail on the head w.r.t. the problems of CO2 and climate change though. importantly, NOx, SO2 and the like are gases which have a fairly localised effect (for instance, in the form of acid rain). this certainly helps when it comes to addressing the problem through legal channels (respect for property channels and the like). in comparison, climate change is an inherently cross-jurisdictional problem since one country may effectively be held to ransom by another, simply because CO2 emitted in one part of the world is forecast to contribute evenly to warming all over the planet.* thus, when you say the US has to go through the IPCC to reach an accord… well, welcome to the realities of trying manage a global problem without a global government! (indeed, the intractability of the ethical dilemma over who “should” shoulder the burden of abatement proved to be the major stumbling block at the recent Copenhagen conference… which is why no-one who follows these matters closely would have been particularly confident of a binding resolution.)
as for bringing the FED and the ECB into this, come on man, you’re just clutching at straws! there may be severe problems with the our monetary systems, but that hardly changes the nature of these environmental problems. the clean air act might have made manufacturing activities in the US more expensive (a contentious point in itself), but – even so – the aim has simply been to incorporate the pollution damage externality, as basic economics dictates it should be. (to illustrate my point with another example, should israeli farmers complain about the water rationing market that forces them to be ultra-efficient in their agricultural methods? quite obviously no, because efficient use of water is necessity for sustainable economic growth there.)
* I know you are sceptical of the science – a subject for another debate on another day – but just indulge the economics here…
I am consistent in so far as I persist in my view that government intervention has not, is not and will not solve the problems you refer to, whether it be reducing global emissions of NOx, SO2, or CO2; solving poverty; providing global monetary stability; or finding a cure for AIDS or cancer. Whether it be a global government or sovereign government, this holds. The incentive for the market to solve such problems is profit. Governments can only steal private profits and redistribute it to people projects such as this. Fact. The market will allocate capital to the cause if it deems it just. Fact. The market is a more efficient allocator of capital. Fact.
As for bringing the Fed and ECB into this, I am not clutching at straws, the latter two, through the IMF, are using the exact same argument (http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2010/051110.htm) to bring about global monetary governance and a global reserve currency. Is it only blatantly obvious to a few that the same arguments are used repeatedly in various spheres to increase regulation and move in a direction of global governance? That is my firm view and message of the initial article on propaganda, although perhaps it was aimed at readers who understand the above-mentioned concept.
PS. While they may not regress, cars may progress from the standard of having catalytic converters to more improved, if the market was left to it. Were catalytic converters with its negative side-effects (claimed by many) not an intermediate stage of development – i.e. a bitter pill to swallow to see improved health, so to speak? Would further progress not see benefits of living through stage of catalytic converters be sufficient to reverse the prior claimed negatives? I’m sure you’d agree, but my doubts lie with the ability of a global or sovereign government achieving – not even lofty goals, simply progressive – for I fear this will end with no or little progress, and supply shortages, in the same way we had electricity shortages in SA, and are heading for a water crisis down the road.
well, when you put it like that, you certainly are consistent. your persistence in conflating completely separate issues is also to be admired.
thanks for all that stuff on markets, AIDS and cancer, though. i’d suggest that you have just spent the better part of three paragraphs duelling a straw man, but two references to cereal by-products in consecutive posts is probably too much, no?
until next time.
p.s. markets certainly do act on profit and allocate resources as they see fit. whether they always internalise damage externalities is another issue. of course, centralised intervention on environmental problems can potentially make matters worse (elinor ostrom is one author with intriguing evidence from cases on certain common-pool resources). however, there are quite obviously more than a number of instances where government action has worked rather handsomely in addressing environmental damages… just remember that you are the one – through the above article – citing an example of government-prompted improvements in air quality.