P ublish T he heartland institute • a nonprofit organization • palatine. Il l i n o i s CONTENTS P ublisher and E ditor Joseph Bast A rt D i r e c t o r SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT ENVIRONMENTALISM Matthew J. Nutting >- A Fable for Today, by Joseph Bast 3 As s i s t a n t E d i t o r s >• Apocalypse W henever, by Andrew Ferguson 4 Lee Kessler Diane Carol Bast >■ Hard Choices: The Future of Environmentalism, by Patrick Moore, Ph.D. 6 C ontributors Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D., Joseph Bast, Harvey Black, Robert E. Brockie, M.D., George S. Dunlop, Andrew Ferguson, Sally Brain Gentiile, Robert E Gordon, Jr., Gordon W. Gribble, Ph.D., Peter J. Hill, Ph.D., Gary L. Huber, M.D., Vijay K. Mahajan, M.D., Patrick Moore, Ph.D., Edward D. Porter, Richard C. Rue, Jane Shaw, S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., Richard Stroup, Ph.D. RECYCLING 12 >■ How Automobiles Have Cleaned Up Their Act, by Joseph Bast * DISTRIBUTION GLOBAL WARMING AND 14 OZONE T he Cold Facts on Global Warming, by Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D. 16 >- My Adventures in the Ozone Layer, by S. Fred Singer, Ph.D. 18 % WILDLIFE A N D E N D A N G E R E D S P E C I E S _________ Earth Day ‘96 is a publication of The Heartland Institute, a twelve-year-old nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Palatine, Illinois. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not nec­ essarily represent the views of the edi­ tors or The Heartland Institute. Additional copies are available for $2 by mail (volume discounts are available). For information, call 847/202-3060 or write to: The Heartland Institute 800 East Northwest Highway Suite 1080 Palatine, Illinois 60067 O r visit our homepage on the World Wide Web at http://www.heartland.org Earth 8 >■ Are We Running O ut of Oil? by Edward D. Porter and Sally Brain Gentiile C omputer S ystems 2 ENERGY Rethinking Recycling, by Harvey Black Douglas Kinney Lisa Doering ACSH Atlas Foundation Brookings Institution Beacon Hill Institute Cascade Institute CAST Center for Market Processes Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow Environmental Education Enterprises Evergreen Freedom Foundation Free Enterprise Institute John Locke Foundation N C Citizens for Business and Industry Pattern Research PERC S.D. Family Policy Council Sutherland Institute Young America’s Foundation AND Day £ 96 . >■ T he Revitalization of American Wildlife, by Robert E. Gordon, Jr., and George S. Dunlop HUMAN 21 HEALTH T he Future of Chlorine, by Gordon W. Gribble, Ph.D. 24 Smoke and Mirrors, by Gary L. Huber, M.D., Robert E. Brockie, M.D., and Vijay K. Mahajan, M.D. 27 >~ THE NEW ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT >■ The Free Market and the Environment, by Richard Stroup, Ph.D., and Jane Shaw 29 >■ Rules for Eco-Sanity, by Joseph Bast, Peter J. Hill, Ph.D., and Richard C. Rue 31 Resource Guide 35 ’9 6 A Fa b l e for T oday By Joseph Bast ost Earth Day publications contain page after page of dire tmmings of threats to our emirunnuju and our health. Often, the articles and editorials mix scientific claims with politics, calling for more government regulations, higher taxes, and more “takings” of private property. Earth Day ‘96 is different. We focus on sound science and giving you the facts you need to make up your own mind. When we discuss politics, we look for government poli­ cies that are cost effective and don’t needlessly infringe on people’s rights. We’re commit­ ted to Common-Sense Environmentalism, not the kind of environmentalism that relies on scare tactics or hides a not-so-secret political agenda. The following article, written by the publisher of Earth Day ‘96, sets forth the vision of environmentalism shared by most of the authors featured here. We think you will find in it a welcome antidote to the shrill and reckless rhetoric that so often appears in Earth Day papers produced by other groups. Happy reading! M There once was a town . . . had two healthy children lost a third child due to miscarriage. Her doctor was unable to explain why the miscarriage occurred, and through conversations with other women in town she learned that several of them had also experienced unex­ plained miscarriages. These women spent many months trying to prove a connec­ tion between their personal tragedies and man-made pollutants. THE REAL TRAGEDY The suffering experienced by the residents of this town would be tragic in any case, but it was all the worse because none of the fears that caused the suffering had any scientific basis. The town’s residents were not in danger of being poisoned or getting cancer from chemicals in their air, water, or food.* To say they were victims of a gigan­ tic hoax is too strong a claim to make, since many of the people who spread the fears and misinformation were sincere. But it is certain the townspeople were mis­ informed and misled. Consider the case of chlorine in drinking water. According to Stigg Regli, with the Office of Groundwater and Surface Water of the Environmental Protection Agency, here once was a town where people lived in fear of their environment. They were afraid to drink tap water, eat apples from the nearby orchards, or live near electric power lines. Fear of getting cancer from The risk of death from known pathogens in untreated surface man-made pollutants was everywhere. Every day, new dangers he water appears to be at least 100 to 1,000 times greater seemed to come to light. H e a rtla n d than the risk of cancer from known DBPs [disinfectant Even though everything about this town seemed Institute, publisher of Earth Day byproducts] in chlorinated drinking water. It also pleasant and healthy, fear of environmental hazards hung ‘96, is a twelve-year-old nonprofit, non­ appears that the risk of illness from pathogens in like a cloud over the town’s residents. Some bought partisan research organization. Heartland untreated surface water is at least 10,000 to 1 mil­ bottled water for drinking and cooking because they operates a fax-on-demand information service lion times greater than the risk of cancer from were afraid of chlorine and other trace chemicals in called PolicyFax; publishes books, a bimonthly DBPs in chlorinated drinking water. the town’s water supply. Others paid extra for “organ­ magazine, policy studies, and shorter essays; and ically grown” fruits and vegetables to avoid pesticide hosts seminars and events. Its authors focus on ways Similarly, scientists now believe that pesticide residues. to reduce the size and cost of government. residues pose a smaller threat to our health than do Fear of man-made chemicals affected everyone Memberships are $49 ($29 without the mag­ substances that occur naturally in many common in this town, sometimes in major ways. The owner of azine). Contact The Heartland Institute, 800 foods, even organically grown fruits and vegetables. the orchard, for example, saw his sales collapse when East Northwest Highway, Suite 1080, The Food and Drug Administration estimates that pes­ claims were made that a chemical he used on his apple Palatine, Illinois 60067, phone ticides account for just 0.01 percent- of the cancer risk trees without incident for twenty years might cause cancer. 847/202-3060. associated with food. Yet in 1989, an environmental group He eventually had to sell the orchard to a developer, who and compliant national media frightened fruit buyers with the bulldozed the apple trees to make way for duplexes. Alar scare, costing orchard owners across the country hundreds of Other people’s lives were disrupted when government regula­ millions of dollars in sales. tions aimed at reducing air pollution forced a local factory to close. The In our fable, government regulations new law would have required the firm forced a factory to close. The U.S. to buy expensive equipment to Environmental Protection Agency esti­ reduce smokestack emissions— Earth Day *96 mates that compliance with air pollution even though the plant’s managers control regulations from 1981 to 1990 had put forward a less-costly provides you w ith cost businesses $292 billion, or $360 per plan to reduce emissions to year for every household in America. the information the level required by the Regulatory compliance, according to law. Unable to pay for and understanding research conducted by many independent the new equipment, the scholars, typically costs between four and owners closed the facto­ you need to achieve six times as much as the least costly pol­ ry. Many of the laid-off lution control options that would achieve workers couldn’t find eco-sanity. the same level of emission reductions. new jobs, and those And the unexplained miscarriages? who did received Miscarriages are more common than lower pay and most of us realize, and most are not medically explainable. It is not difficult for one fewer benefits. woman who has experienced an unexplained miscarriage to find others who have B ecau se of suffered the same fate, and then to believe that the events have a common cause, th e fe a r t h a t “perhaps a chemical in the water, or fumes from a nearby factory.” The victims of gripped the town, miscarriages and other poorly understood health maladies deserve our sympathy. But many health problems we should remember that victims are rarely experts on the causes of their afflictions. were blamed on environ­ Reporters and local doctors often become parties to the fruitless search for an mental hazards. A woman environmental cause of what are, in fact, unrelated personal tragedies. Bad news who sells, so the media will pay rapt attention to people who have bad news to share. T T *Negative statements, such as this one, cannot be scientifically proven. Since the topic here is a hypothetical situation, I make the statement here with this qualification. FABLE, CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 E a r t h D a y ’9 6 FABLE, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 Doctors may genuinely desire to help their patients understand a personal tragedy, but they seldom are experts in epidemiology (the study of how diseases spread) or toxicology (the study of poisons), so they often don’t know when to attribute illnesses to a spe­ cific cause rather than to pure chance. In summary, our town was stricken by fear and misinformation, not by real environmental threats. Considerable expense and emotional trauma could have been avoided if the town’s residents had better information. O nly a Fa b l e ? Communities like the one in our fable really do exist in America today: Love Canal, New York; Times Beach, Missouri; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Newark, New Jersey; Midland, Michigan; Alsea, Oregon; Hartford, Tennessee; Fountain Valley, California; Montecito, California; and Guilford, Connecticut, among others. Real people have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and even their lives due to various environmental scares. Americans pay a heavy price for their irrational fear of chemicals. Billions of dollars are being wasted on attempts to reduce toxic and other emissions to levels far below those shown to have any negative effect on human health or wildlife. People have lost thetT jobs because environmental regulations were imposed without regard to costs or consequences. The eco - S anity exit “We stand now where two roads diverge,” wrote Rachel Carson at the start of Silent Spring’s final chap­ ter. She could not have known that her book, and sim­ ilar works by authors soon to follow, would send the environmental movement down the road to chemophobia, panicky predictions of the end of the world, and one embarrassing false alarm after another. Today, 32 years later, it is time to ask whether we have taken this road far enough. It is time, as The article on free markets is followed by “rules Carson also wrote, to “look about and see what other for eco-sanity,” a collection of 36 facts and principles course is open to us.” that we need to understand if we are to resolve envi­ Eco-sanity means applying reason, sound sci­ ronmental controversies. Rules such as “the dose ence, and a respect for the rights of others to envi­ makes the poison” and “correlation is not causation” ronmental issues. A commitment to eco-sanity nec­ help us see through hype and exaggeration, and dis­ essarily means aban­ tinguish sound science from myths doning scare tactics and scare tactics. and relying instead on Finally, appearing on page 35 the good judgment of are lists of organizations that share Billions of dollars individual environ­ our vision for a new environmen­ mentalists and the talism, and that are using the rules are being wasted on general public. It of eco-sanity to make the world means returning to safer and cleaner. As you will see, attempts to reduce common sense. it is a long list. Please contact This special edi­ some of the groups on the list; emissions to levels tion of Earth Day ‘96 they could use your help. far below those shown provides you, the The new environmental move­ reader, with the infor­ ment is not more moderate than to have any negative mation and under­ the old movement. And it isn’t standing you need to pro-business or pro-government. effect on human health achieve eco-sanity. In The best way to summarize it is to the following pages, say it is smarter environmentalism, or wildlife some of the country’s built on past mistakes and a better leading scientists set understanding of how the world the record straight on works. It’s pro-science, and it suc­ many of the biggest scientific and public health con­ ceeds because it understands and works with the freetroversies of the day. market system, rather than against it. Unlike many environmental organizations, we More people are turning toward eco-sanity with do not assume that you are unable to understand the each passing day. This may be bad news for those real science underlying such issues as global warming, who profit from scare tactics and still rely on out­ ozone depletion, and chlorine. We give you the facts moded economic thinking. But it’s good news for and theories you need in order to think the issues the environment, and for every person who values a through yourself, and arrive at your own conclusions. cleaner and safer planet. I hope you’ll join our Near the end of Earth Day ‘96 is a section titled movement. “The New Environmental Movement.” It starts with V ® © an explanation of how free markets can work to pro­ tect the environment, while government interven­ Joseph Bast is publisher of Earth Day ‘96, president of tion often is cumbersome or even counterproductive. The Heartland Institute, and coauthor of Eco-Sanity: This insight is the foundation of market-based envi­ A Common-Sense Guide to Environmentalism ronmentalism, a new and promising wing of the (Madison Books 1994). This essay is based on the first national environmental movement. and last chapters of that book. . Apocalypse whenever By Andrew Ferguson n 1989, Michael Clark, the executive director of Friends of the Earth, was a little anxious about this whole Earth Day thing. He was in a hurry. What’s the rush? “We are driven by the fact that we don’t have much time left to act, maybe 10 years,” he told the New Environmentalists York Times. And you thought you had problems. long ago learned The guy from the Times didn’t say to Mike, “Yeah? Ten years? Then what w hat every auto happens?” because he didn’t have to. mechanic and BibleThe reporter, being an environmental reporter, already knows from talking to belt rabble-rouser environmental activists what happens then: What happens then is it, the and real-estate panic apocalypse, Armageddon, curtains, the end. artist has always Environmentalists long ago learned what every auto mechanic and known: Bad news Bible-belt rabble-rouser and real-estate panic artist has always known: Bad is profitable new s news is profitable news. As a sales device, the apocalypse is an endlessly renewable resource. It never goes away. News of looming doom works today, it will . 4 Ea r t h Day ’9 6 work tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—just as it worked yesterday and the day before. It certainly worked 25 years ago, around the time the first Earth Day was getting cranked up. The first Earth Day gained rivers of ink and miles of footage on the evening news and managed to induce a kind of coast-to-coast, day-long hysteria in which millions of normally sane Americans did things they would never have dreamed of doing for a fraternity hazing. Time magazine described some of the proceedings in an article titled “Mememto Mori” (literally, I think, “Memo for Morons”): “At the University of Wisconsin, 58 separate programs were staged, including a dawn ‘earth service’ of Sanskrit incantations. Car wreckings—followed by inter­ ment of the beasts—were a common protest. Some students at Florida Technological University held a trial to condemn a Chevrolet. . . .” APOCALYPSE, CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 APOCALYPSE, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4 Haven’t you been reading Life?] Will they enjoy mock steaks made from processed grass or seaweed? Will they accept regimentation and governmental control at a level previously unheard of? Above all, will they be able to retain their sanity in a world gone mad?” The answer to the last question, quite obviously, is no. Dr. Ehrlich wouldn’t let them. There was one other thing the apocalyptics were wrong about— Earth Day itself. A presidential candidate, Ehrlich predicted in 1970, In Cleveland, Time recounted cryptically, “a student held aloft a plastic bag full of garbage and intoned: ‘This is my bag.’” (I don’t understand it either.) There was much more: cooking cowpies, hug­ ging pigs, listening to speeches by John Lindsay. Why did Americans do such things? Because some of it was fun, of coutse, but more importantly because the end was near. Considering the reams of apocalyptic trea­ tises then blanketing America, it’s a wonder we TH E H E ID E L B E R G A P P E A L didn’t all start waving bags of garbage. ________ Norman Cousins, the editor, announced We stress that many essential human activities are ihe Heidelberg Appeal was publicly released at that “the human race is operating under the carried out either by manipulating hazardous sub­ the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. By starkest of deadlines.” Life magazine told us that stances or in their proximity, and that progress and the end of the 1992 summit, 425 scientists and by 1980 city dwellers would need gas masks. development have always involved increasing control other intellectual leaders had signed the appeal. Since And NBC’s Edwin Newman, his sunken eyes over hostile forces, to the benefit of mankind. then, word of mouth has prompted hundreds more darkening with portent, warned his viewers scientists to lend their support. Today, more than that by 1980 the mighty rivers of this great We therefore consider that scientific ecology is no 2,700 signatories, including dozens of Nobel Prize nation “would have reached the boiling point.” more than an extension of this continual progress winners, from 102 countries have signed it. Scary, yes. But a skeptic could ask, with toward the improved life of future generations. We some justification: What does Norman Cousins, intend to assert science’s responsibility and duties widely recognized even then as an all-purpose ® ® © toward society as a whole. crank, know? Or the editors of Life, for that matter? And Edwin Newman—wasn’t grammar We want to make our full contribution to the preser­ We do, however, forewarn the authorities in charge of his thing? vation of our common heritage, the Earth. our planet’s destiny against decisions which are sup­ The tribe of apocalyptics understood that ported by pseudoscientific arguments or false and it helps if your witch doctor is indeed a doctor, We are, however, worried at the dawn of the twentynonrelevant data. and- to silence the skeptics the movement first century, at the emergence of an irrational ideolo­ enlisted one Paul Ehrlich as chief whoopergy which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress We draw everybody’s attention to the absolute neces­ upper. He was catholic in his alarmism, but it and impedes economic and social development. sity of helping poor countries attain a level of sus­ was the subject of “overpopulation” that really tainable development which matches that of the rest set his bells to ringing. He became the We contend that a Natural State, sometimes idealized of the planet, protecting them from troubles and dan­ Quasimodo of the cause. by movements with a tendency to look toward the gers stemming from developed nations, and avoiding Now, Dr. Ehrlich was an entomologist by past, does not exist and has probably never existed their entanglement in a web of unrealistic obligations training, and some immediately recognized that since man’s first appearance in the biosphere, insofar which would compromise both their independence after many years of rigorous study he had lost as humanity has always progressed by increasingly and their dignity. the capacity to distinguish between an army of harnessing Nature to its needs and not the reverse. hideous little arthropods swarming over his We fully subscribe to the objectives of a scientific The greatest evils which stalk our Earth are ignorance desk in a Stanford laboratory and an upwardly ecology for a universe whose resources must be taken and oppression, and not Science, Technology, and mobile population of Homo sapiens building stock of, monitored and preserved. Industry whose instruments, when adequately man­ tract houses in Palo Alto. Each for him was aged, are indispensable tools of a future shaped by equally unpleasant; each brought chaos. But we herewith demand that this stock-taking, mon­ Humanity, by itself and for itself, overcoming major But, hinged or unhinged, he was a doctor, itoring and preservation be founded on scientific cri­ problems like overpopulation, starvation and world­ and that seemed good enough for everybody. It teria and not on irrational pre-conceptions. wide diseases. was enough, in any event, for Playboy and Look and Reader’s Digest and McCall’s and the dozens of other slick magazines that got him to dis­ pense his wisdom in their pages, and it was would spring from the Day’s fertile loins, and the doctor’s own orga­ enough for Johnny Carson, who throughout the ‘70s made the bug nization, Zero Population Growth, would form the nucleus of a new man a regular guest on his show. political party. For Ehrlich had the tone just right. “We face a very real crisis Earth Day, he wrote, “is going to have a tremendous impact. this instant," he told Reader’s Digest readers in 1968. Even if the world’s food supply tripled by the year 2000, he con­ The movement is going to generate a lot of civil disobedience, sim­ tinued in his Digest article, “it is already too late to prevent a drastic ilar to what we saw in the early days of civil rights. . . . Among other rise in the death rate through starvation.” And how late is it, as things, people are just going to stop paying their bills.” Johnny’s audience might have called out? “The time of famines will Gladwin Hill, the national environmental reporter for the New be upon us full-scale in 1975.” But then a cruel shrug: “What’s done York Times, said the occasion marked the beginning of “what may is done.” become the greatest movement ever to sweep the country.” And the Nevertheless, the inevitable end has a sunny side. It’s already editors of The Progressive were also, as is their wont, wrong: Earth Day would “become the birthday of a new and more hopeful movement too late, but we still get to take drastic action. A Federal Department of Population and Environment, a head tax for families with chil­ affecting all our lives in all ways.” dren, mandatory birth-control education in the schools, lots of abor­ Instead, as we now know, Earth Day 1970 went the way of all tions, an end to “death control” (an apocalyptic term meaning “med­ media events: It faded into the pages of Look and Time and Newsweek, ical research”), and finally, soon or late, “compulsory birth regula­ yellowing in bound volumes, gathering dust in library stacks. It was a tion.” close call, however, and in the heaving bosom of every environmen­ Come again? “We might,” Ehrlich wrote, “institute a system talist there is a fountain of hope that never runs dry. whereby a temporary sterilant would be added to a staple food or to the water supply.” Earth Day was a mother lode for fans of drastic ® ® © action. And to think that right-wingers were worried about fluoride! Had enough? Dr. Ehrlich lets no one off that easy. He leaves Digest readers with a dirge of questions to ponder. “We must look to Andrew Ferguson is an editorial writer for Scripps Howard News Service. This the survivors,” he writes, “if any.” article originally appeared in Reason ($26lyear, from The Reason Foundation, “Will they have to wear smog masks as a matter of routine? [Yes! phone 310/391-2245). T: Ea r t h Day ’9 6 5 c h o ic e s : hard The Future E n v ir o n m e n t a l is m of A founder o f Qreenpeace speaks out against eco-extremism and for collaboration instead of confrontation. By Patrick Moore, Ph.D. ore than twenty years ago, I was one of a Some environmentalists didn’t see it that way. dozen or so a c tiv ists who founded Indeed, there had always been a minority of extrem­ G reenpeace in the basem ent of the ists who took a “No Compromise in Defense of Unitarian Church in Vancouver. The Vietnam war Mother Nature” position. They were the monkeywas raging and nuclear holocaust seemed closer every wrenchers, tree-spikers, and boat scuttlers of the day. We linked peace, ecology, and a talent for media Earth First! and Paul Watson variety. Considered communications and went totally unacceptable by the on to build the world’s largely pacifist intellectual largest environm ental mainstream of the movement, activisc organization. By they were a colorful but rene­ In the name of 1986, Greenpeace was gade element. established in 26 countries Since its founding in the late “deep ecology,” many 1960s, the modem environmen­ and had an annual income environmentalists of over $100 million. tal movement had created a In 1986, the main­ vision that was international in have taken a sharp stream of western society scope and had room for people of was busy adopting an envi­ all political persuasions. We turn to the ultra-left, ronmental agenda that was prided ourselves in subscribing to considered radical only fif­ a philosophy that was “trans­ ushering in a mood teen years earlier. By 1989, political, trans-ideological, and the combined impact of trans-national” in character. For of extremism and Chernobyl, the Exxon Greenpeace, the Cree legend intolerance. Valdez, the threat of global “Warriors of the Rainbow” warming, and the ozone referred to people of all colors and creeds, working together for hole clinched the debate. All but a handful of reac­ a greener planet. The traditional sharp division between left and right was rendered tionaries joined the call for sustainable development and environmental protection. meaningless by the common desire to protect our life support systems. Violence against people and proper­ Whereas previously the leaders of the environ­ ty were the only taboos. Non-violent direct action mental movement had found themselves on the out­ and peaceful civil disobedience were the hall­ side railing at the gates of power, they were now invited to the table in boardrooms and caucuses marks of the movement. Truth mattered around the world. For environmentalists, accustomed and science was respected for the knowledge it brought to the to the politics of confrontation, this new era of debate. acceptance posed a challenge as great as any cam­ paign to save the planet. Now this broadFor me, Greenpeace is about ringing an ecolog­ based vision is chal­ lenged by a new phi­ ical fire alarm, awakening mass consciousness to the true dimensions of our global predicament, pointing losophy of radical out the problems and defining their nature. environm ental is m . In th e Greenpeace doesn’t necessarily have the solutions to those problems and certainly isn’t equipped to put name of “deep solutions into practice. That requires the combined ecology,” many environ­ efforts of environmentalists, governments, public and private institutions, and corporations. This demands mentalists have a high degree of cooperation and collaboration. The ta k e n a sh a rp turn to the ultrapolitics of blame and shame must be replaced with the politics of working together and win-win. left, ushering in a mood of extrem­ ism and intolerance. As a C ollaboration clear signal of this new agen­ v e r s u s C onfrontation da, in 1990 Greenpeace called It was no coincidence that a roundtable, con­ for a “grassroots revolution sensus-based negotiation process was adopted by against pragmatism and com­ thousands of environmental leaders. It is the logical promise.” tool for working in the new spirit of green coopera­ As an environmentalist in the tion. It may not be a perfect system for decision-mak­ political center, I now find myself branded a traitor ing, but like Winston Churchill said about democra­ and a sellout by this new breed of saviors. My name cy, “It’s the worst form of government except for all appears in Greenpeace’s “Guide to Anti-Environ­ the others.” A collaborative approach promises to mental Organizations.” Even fellow Greenpeace give environmental issues their fair consideration in founder, Bob Hunter, refers to me as the “eco-Judas.” relation to traditional economic and social priorities. M 6 Ea r t h D ay ’9 6 Yes, I am trying to help the Canadian forest industry improve its performance so we might be proud of it again. As chair of the Forest Practices Committee of the Forest Alliance of British Columbia, I have led the process of drafting and implementing the Principles of Sustainable Forestry that have been adopted by a majority of the industry. These Principles establish goals for environmental protection, forest management, and public involvement. They are providing a framework for dialogue and action toward improvements in forest practices. Why shouldn’t I make a contribution to environmental reform in the industry in which my grandfather and father worked for over 90 years? THE RISE OF ECO-EXTREMISM Two profound events triggered the split between those advocating a pragmatic or “liberal” approach to ■ ecology and the new “zero-tolerance” attitude of the extremists. The first event, mentioned previously, was the widespread adoption of the environmental agen­ da by the mainstream of business and government. This left environmentalists with the choice of either being drawn into collaboration with their former “enemies” or of taking ever more extreme positions. Many environ­ mentalists chose the latter route. They rejected the concept of “sustainable d e v e lo p m e n t” and took a strong anti­ development stance. S u rp risin g ly enough, the second event that caused the environm e n t a l movement to veer to the left was the fall of the Berlin Wall. Suddenly the international peace movement had a lot less to do. Pro-Soviet groups in the West were discredited. Many of their members joined the environ­ mental movement, bringing with them their eco-Marxism and proSandinista sentiments. These factors have contributed to a new variant of the environmental movement that is so extreme that many people, including myself, believe its agenda is a greater threat to the global environ­ ment than that posed by mainstream society. Some of the features of eco-extremism are: HARD CHOICES, CONTINUED ON PAGE 7 HARD CHOICES, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 ability, it is the environmental movement that falls short of most other institutions in our society. The challenge for all environmentalists is to resist the path of ever-increasing extremism, and to know w hen to talk rather than fight . Anti-human The new extremists characterize the human species as a “cancer” on the face of the earth. They perpetuate the belief that all human activity is negative whereas the rest of nature is good. This results in alienation from nature and subverts the most important lesson of ecology, that we are all part of nature and interdependent with it. This aspect of environmental extremism leads to disdain and disrespect for fellow' humans and the belief that it would be good if a disease such as AIDS were to wipe out most of the population. In statements from Greenpeace it is clear that they are perpetuating this false dualism between humans and nature. “Human intervention” is characterized as unnatural when, in fact, we are as much a part of nature and natural evolution as any other species. A n ti-t e c h n o l o g y and anti-s c ie n c e Anti-t r a d e Eco-extremists are not only opposed to “free trade” but to international trade in general. This is based on the belief that each “bioregion” should be self-sufficient in all its material needs. If it’s too cold to grow bananas, too badI Certainly anyone who studies ecology comes to realize the impor­ tance of natural geographic units such as watersheds, islands, and estuaries. As foolish as it is to ignore ecosystems, however, it is absurd to put fences around them as if they were independent of their neighbors. In its extreme version, bioregionalism is just another form of ultra-nationalism and gives rise to the same excesses of intolerance and xenophobia. Eco-extremists dream of returning to some kind of technologically primitive society. Horse-logging is the only kind of forestry they can fully support. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and “unnatural.” The Sierra Club’s recent book, Clearcut: The Tragedy of Industrial Forestry, is an excellent example of this perspective. Anti- f r e e e n t e r p r i s e “Western industrial society” is rejected by eco-extremists in its entire­ eep Despite the fact that communism and state ty, as are nearly every known type of forestry, including shelterwood, A m e ric a socialism have failed, eco-extremists are basical­ seed tree, and small group selection. The word “nature” is capitalized Beautiful is the nearly leg­ ly anti-business. They dislike “competition” every time it is used and we are encouraged to “find our place” in endary anti-litter organization and are definitely opposed to profits. Anyone the world through “shamanic journeying” and “swaying with the begun 41 years ago. Today it has 500 engaging in private business, particularly if trees.” Science is invoked only as a means of justifying the adop­ community affiliates in 41 states. In addi­ successful, is characterized as greedy and tion of beliefs that have no basis in science to begin with. tion to supporting local clean-up efforts, lacking in morality. The extremists do not KAB has expanded into research on recy­ seem to find it necessary to put forward an Anti-o rg anization cling, packaging, and environmental edu­ alternative system of organization that would Environmental extremists tend to expect the whole world to cation- Contact KAB’s national head­ prove efficient at meeting the material needs adopt anarchism as the model for individual behavior. This is quarters at 9 West Broad Street, of society. expressed in their dislike of national governments, multinational Stamford, Connecticut 06902. corporations, and large institutions of all kinds. It would seem that Anti- d e m o c r a t ic this critique applies to all organizations except the environmental This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of radical movement itself. environmentalism. The very foundation of our society, liber­ Corporations are criticized for taking profits made in one country and invest­ al representative democracy, is rejected as being too “human-cen­ ing them in other countries, this being proof that they have no “allegiance” to tered.” In the name of “speaking for the trees and other species,” we are faced with local communities. Where is the international environmental movement’s alle­ a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism. The “planetary police” giance to local communities? How m uch of the m oney raised in the name of would answer to no one but Mother Earth herself. aboriginal peoples has been distributed to them? How much is dedicated to assist­ ing loggers who were thrown out of work by environ­ mental campaigns? How much to CONCLUSION research forestry systems The challenge for all environmentalists is to resist the path of ever-increas­ that are environmentally ing extremism, and to know when to talk rather than fight. To remain credible and ec o n o m ic a lly and effective they must reject the anti-human, anarchistic approach. This superior? When it _ is made difficult by the fact that many individuals and their messengers, comes to the media, are naturally attracted to confrontation and sensation. It isn’t accounteasy to get excited about a committee meeting when you could be bring­ ing the state to its knees at a blockade. The best approach to our predicament is to recognize the validity of both the bioregional and the global visions for social and environmental sustainability. Issues such as overpopulation and sustainable forest prac­ tices require international discussion and resolution. Composting of food wastes and bicycle repairs are best accomplished locally. We must think and act both globally and locally, always cognizant of impacts at one level I caused by actions at another. Extremism that rejects this approach will I only bring disaster to all species, including humans. K ^ t) ® €) Patrick Moore, Ph.D., is president of Qreenspirit and chairman of the Forest Practices Committee of the Forest Alliance of British Columbia. E a r t h D a y ’9 6 7 RETHINKING RECYCLING Bys Harvey Black mericans seem to be having a love affair with recycling. No longer do people simply look for a refuse container to toss away a used soda can or plastic bottle. They search for the right recycling receptacle. All over the United States, when it’s time to take out the garbage, millions of people take out care­ fully sorted bundles of news­ Plastic Recycling Is on the Rise papers and cardboard, bags of X'P3’ aluminum and steel cans, and a* plastic containers—all des­ tined for recycling. R°'- .q}*' iSAccording to BioCycle mag­ azine’s annual survey, the 48.6 PET Soft Drink Bottles 18 494 United States had 7,265 curbTotal PET Bottles 32.6 22 547 side recycling programs serv­ Natural HDPE Bottles 18 25.9 304 ing 108 million people last Total HDPE Bottles 486 21 17.0 year. Furthermore, every state All Plastic Bottles 1,082 21 21.3 in the union has some type of Survey b y R.W. B e c k a n d Ernst & Young program aimed at recycling. The programs range from diverting large amounts of plastics, aluminum, paper, and cardboard from landfills to sorting facilities, which send them on their way to be reused in manufacture, to simply having state governments buy prod­ ucts containing recycled materials. “It’s become a way of life,” says Donald Berman, Plastic Bottle Recycling, 1989-1994 director of solid waste management for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, which includes Pittsburgh. But is it a way of life that makes economic and environmental sense? Recently a number of economists and policy analysts have ques­ tioned .whether the benefits of recycling out­ weigh the ease of disposing of waste materials in landfills. Critics say that what seems at first to make a great deal of sense doesn’t always stand up to a close examination. For instance, some critics argue that collection costs make recycling a bad bargain for many localities because the costs often exceed the prices that 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 the recyclables bring on the open market. They also charge that operating additional A n n u a l S u rv e y , trucks to pick up recyclables increases toxic R . W . B e c k f o r th e A m e r ic a n P la s tic s C o u n c il diesel emissions, offsetting any environmental gains. Recycling advocates are quick to respond that economics are not the only consideration and that recycling is essential in managing America’s solid waste. They say that using recycled instead of virgin materials benefits G ro cery Packaging Recovery for Recycling the environment by cutting back on a wide range of pollutants and preserving biodiversi­ ty. And, they add, recycling may make eco­ nomic sense by delaying or lessening the need for landfills so that land can be put to more productive uses. A C ycle 1970 8 of recycling Though recycling may seem like a recent innovation because of the media attention it has received in the last decade, forms of recy­ cling have been in use in the United States for almost 100 years. At the turn of the century, waste paper and rags were used to make new paper when wood pulp was scarce or too expen­ 1980 1990 1993 sive. Recycling scrap metal and other materials F r a n k l in A s s o c ia te s , L t d . was an American institution during World War II. And deposits on glass soda bottles in the 1950s and 1960s encouraged people to recycle and reuse them. Ea r t h Day ’9 6 When the more modem version of recycling began, its econom­ ics were disastrous in some cases, according to Lynn Scarlett, vice president for research of the Reason Foundation, a Long Beach, California, nonprofit think tank. In some cities, it cost about $400 per ton to collect recyclables in 1990 and 1991. In Chicago, the cost of an ini­ tial curbside recycling pro­ ject was $1,000 a ton, says Scarlett, which made it unfeasible. It cost around $70 per ton to dump refuse into landfills at that time. Moreover, when recy­ cling became popular, the country was in an economic slump. In 1991, in the mid­ dle of a recession, the demand for materials, whether virgin or recycled, was low. Prices for recycled materials plummeted. The aggregate value for a ton of recycled mate­ rials in 1988 was $60- In 1991 and 1992, this same ton brought $15. But in the last few years, Scarlett says, there has been a sea change in recycling economics, with prices dramatically rebounding. Still, the economics of recycling is a mosaic of issues including col­ lection costs, market demand, landfill costs, and recycling infrastruc­ ture and technology. Determining whether recycling makes econom­ ic sense involves analyzing these components to see how they fit into the total picture. COLLECTION COSTS A major portion of the cost to communities of recycling is the cost of collecting recycled goods. It’s these costs, argue critics, that can make recycling a bad bargain. “What happens in recycling is that collection costs are Recently a number of very high and the col­ lection is done sepa­ economists and policy rately from trash collection, and so analysts have ques­ that’s what drives the diseconomies of recy­ tioned whether the cling,” says Kenneth Chilton, director of benefits of recycling the Center for the Study of American outweigh the ease of Business, a think tank disposing of waste in St. Louis, Missouri. Collection costs for materials in landfills recyclables are ap­ proximately equal to that of collecting trash at around $50 per ton. One example of this problem is the city of San Jose, California, which reports it costs $28 per ton to landfill waste compared with $147 a ton to recycle. According to Lindsey Wolf, the city’s manag­ er of government relations, the $147 per ton is an “incentive fee” paid to the private companies that collect the recyclables and mar­ ket them. “They take all the risk and get all the reward,” she says, noting that the city gets no money for the recycled materials col­ lected. But the city does get some rewards, she says. As a result of recycling, the city has extended the life of its landfill by four years, says Wolf. . RECYCLING, CONTINUED ON PAGE 9 RECYCLING, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 In Atlantic County, New Jersey, for the first six months of 1995, recycling brought in $2.45 million, says James Rutala, vice president of the county’s public utilities authority. But the cost of collecting the recycled goods came to $1.6 million, and sorting the recycled materials cost $1.1 mil­ lion plus the $325,000 in interest payments on the recycling facility. Consequently, recy­ cling actually cost the county over half a million dollars. But Rutala doesn’t think this proves there are no benefits from recycling. “I think it’s definitely worth it,” he says, because approxi- / # mately 20 percent of ' the county’s waste stream is recycled. Limited La n d f il l s Although collec­ tion costs may be on the list of cons for recy cling, adding the cost of landfills swings the balance back toward the pros. Rutala says that the cost of landfill space, added to collection costs, can average as much as $88 per ton. “You pay $88 a ton to put that material in the ground,” he says. “There are no positives that are being derived from that.” Rutala adds that recycling lengthens the life of the existing landfill. Siting a landfill can cost millions of dollars. Recycling, Rutala says, has taken the issue of landfill siting “off the local agenda.” In Madison, Wisconsin, recycling has meant notable savings, according to research done by John Reindl, the recycling manager for Dane County. Madison recycles about 50 percent of its household wastes. Reindl found that in the past year recycling has saved the city over $500,000 in landfill charges and has earned $475,000 for the city from the recy­ cled products. “They saved over a million bucks by going to recycling,” he says. Other cities can make similar savings, but it requires attention to operations and looking for ways to become more efficient. Allegheny County’s Berman notes that landfill prices have decreased over the past several years. One reason is simple supply and demand. Landfill prices in the Alleghany County area climbed in the late “I t’s impossible to generalize nationwide about whether recy­ cling is a desirable approach. It’s going to vary from community to community.” 1980s. “A number of companies got into the business. There’s more landfill space than we Between 1988 and had before, but there isn’t that much more material than we had before, so prices have 1994 the paper indus­ gone down,” he says. Nevertheless, Berman argues that recy­ try spent $7.5 billion cling is worthwhile. “The cheaper the land­ in technology and fill, the harder it is to make a profit with recycling, no question about it,” he says. capital investment “No one is going to balance budgets with recycling, but it is a very affordable teaching to recycle paper. tool.” Local situations have to be taken into account when figuring the cost of recycling was between $640 and $740 per ton. versus landfill disposal, argues Robert But the high prices for recycled materi­ Stavins, associate professor of public als don’t impress Lester Lave, professor of policy at the JFK School of economics at the Graduate School of Government at Harvard Industrial Administration at Carnegie University. “If we’re talking Mellon University, who questions the eco­ A about Nevada, which has nomic worth of recycling. “If one takes a low costs for siting a land­ look at the past record [of prices], the notion fill, it’s a relatively cheap that it’s always upward from here is kind of alternative. If we’re talk­ crazy,” he says, “I think the one thing that I ing about Rhode Island, feel reasonably certain about is that the it’s a completely different prices we see now are not going to prevail in story. So it’s impossible in the future, that we’re going to see cyclic my opinion to generalize prices going up and down. . . . An over­ nationwide about whether whelming bet is that the long-term trend is recycling is a desirable app­ going to be downward, not upward.” roach. It’s going to vary from commu­ But others see a different picture. While nity to community.” Kohrell and Scarlett acknowledge that prices But Richard Dennison, a senior scien­ tist with the Environmental Defense Fund, argues that direct economic benefit to localities is not More Paper Is Now Recovered Than the only way to measure the eco­ nomic benefits of recycling. “There r—Paper Landfilled are enormous economic savings ► —Paper Recovered elsewhere in the system that may not accrue to the local solid waste manager,” he says, referring for example to the energy savings that can be made by using recycled instead of virgin materials. One step that can be taken, Dennison says, is simply bargaining for better prices for recycled goods—taking advantage of the higher prices that 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 industries now are paying for many recycled commodities. UE ” indicates estimated data. Sent to Landfills 2000 E F r a n k lin A s s o c ia te s , L t d . , f o r A m e r ic a n F o r e s t a n d P a p e r A s s o c ia t io n recy clin g market “The majority of material [for recyclables] are noticeably better than three or four years ago,” says Mary Kohrell, a recy­ cling markets specialist for the University of Wisconsin Extension. Sales of recycled goods can dramatically offset the costs of recycling, but the market for such goods varies widely depending on the availability of virgin goods, environmental regulations, and the costs of using such materials. “Paper in 1995 has been astronomical. Prices have been higher than ever,” Kohrell says, citing prices of $100 to $200 per ton. Just three years ago, she says, paper was sell­ ing for $10-$15 per ton. Kohrell points out other prices indi­ cating a healthy market for recycled materials. Plastics, she says, are selling for between $200 and $300 per ton as of July. Two years ago prices were less than half of that. Aluminum is selling for between $840 and $1,060 a ton. Only a couple of years ago, she says, the price aren’t going to stay high forever (for instance, prices for recycled paper have start­ ed to fall), they see steady markets for many recycled commodities in the future. Scarlett says, “I do not think prices will drop to the real doldrums. Why? We’ve seen an enor­ mous investment in infrastructure to use this stuff.” Industries have begun to invest great amounts of money in equipment and plants to use recycled materials, realizing that there will be a steady stream of it in the future. Between 1988 and 1994 the paper industry spent $7.5 billion in technology and capital investment to recycle paper, says Richard Storat, vice president of economics and materials of the American Forest and Paper Association. “The industry, between 1994 and the year 2000, expects to spend somewhere around $10 billion on additional RECYCLING, CONTINUED ON PAGE lO Ea r t h Day ’9 6 9 RECYCLING, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9 issue may be more complex than it first It is possible that appears. Recycling recycling capacity,” Storat says. The goal is to recycle approximately newsprint is a good the total energy half the paper used in the United States. idea, says L inda Paper is not the only industry that has geared up for recycling. G aines, a systems requirements associ­ “The infrastructure that assures that plastics get recycled has really analyst at Argonne ated w ith increased National Laboratory. matured over the past five years in terms of the actual capacity to “Newsprint is a clear process materials," says Kohrell. Makers of plastic containers are recycling could be putting increasing amounts of recycled materials in containers, says winner. It does take more fossil fuels to Scarlett. For example, Procter & greater than m anu­ make newsprint from Gamble, which makes a multitude of household products, uses from trees than from recy­ facturing w ith virgin M unicipal Solid W aste G eneration, 25 percent to 100 percent recycled cled paper. It’s harder Recovery, and Discards, 1992 to crunch up a tree plastic to make its containers. raw materials Recovery Generation “When you have a Procter & than an old newspa­ Gamble with millions and millions per,” she says. Total % Total of bottles produced each year, it B u t w h e n it O r g a n i c p r o d u c ts means an enormous and continu­ comes to recycling office paper, the situation is different. When mak­ Newspapers 12,550 5,470 44 ous demand,” Scarlett says. ing office paper from trees, a renewable resource is used; when recy­ Corrugated containers 25,400 53 13,395 But it’s almost certain there cling that paper, a fossil fuel is being depleted. When such paper is Office papers 6,680 2,370 35 will be swings in demand and con­ made from trees, pan of the process is fueled by wood by-products of Magazines, sequent swings in prices. For exam­ the pulping process. “When you recycle that paper there is no by­ similar products 5,180 915 18 ple, earlier this year a cotton crop product fuel, so all of the fuel need is purchased fossil fuel,” says 13 Mixed papers 17,555 2,340 failure in China boosted plastic PET bottles 760 30 225 Gaines. HDPE bottles 1,215 180 15 prices because recycled plastic can Instead of recycling office paper, Gaines says, it should be used Other rigid plastic be turned into polyester fiber to to generate energy in coal-fired power plants. “Then you bum less 1 containers 1,500 22 replace cotton fabric. “The Asian coal and displace some of the coal emissions. Paper is a really good, 2 Plastic film 3,500 85 markets began massively importing clean fuel,” she says. Other plastics 30 950 3 recycled plastics,” Scarlett says. “If you’re looking at greenhouse gases,” says Gaines, “if what Polypropylene But in June, a large number of you’re doing is burning biomass and replanting it, there’s no net battery casings 62 89 70 Asian virgin plastic plants began greenhouse gas increase from that cycle. But if you’re burning fossil Textiles 5,140 256 5 operating. “So the Asian market fuel there’s an increase in greenhouse gases.” Thus she argues, recy­ Tires (rubber only) 2,820 500 18 [for recycled plastics] kind of went cling has to be done in light of the goals that society wants to Wood pallets 8,935 2,235 25 bust. The prices started to drop,” achieve. In o r g a n ic p r o d u c ts she says. But Dennison argues that Gaines’ analysis glosses over an impor­ Steel cans 2,817 1,135 40 Lave says that such examples tant factor. “The wood has to be harvested from a forest and the for­ M ajor appliances support the need for caution: est has to be managed to produce the wood. And that set of man­ (ferrous metals only) 2,665 55 1,465 “There are firms that go bankrupt agement practices has important environmental consequences with Aluminum cans 1,584 1,075 68 all the time, just because they have regard to biodiversity, habitat, and so forth, that have to be counted Other aluminum overly optimistic expectations as debits on the virgin side of the ledger.” packaging 30 361 8 about what prices will be,” he says. 11,890 Glass containers 3,900 33 The analytical and environmental thicket that paper presents Automotive batteries isn’t unique. Scarlett points to glass recycling as another instance in (lead) 751 740 98 which “devilish details” have to be considered when viewing the E nvironmental Yard trimmings 35,000 6,000 17 costs and benefits of recycling. Generally, she says, recycling glass gains takes less energy than making virgin glass, meaning reduced emissions The economic issues sur­ Recovery in this table is for recycling and composting only of gases such as carbon monoxide. The type of furnace used in glass rounding recycling may seem com­ making, however, alters that generality. Scarlett points to the use of Franklin Associates, Ltd. for Keep America Beautiful, Inc. plex, but they are at least some­ cleaner-operating electric furnaces to replace traditional furnaces what quantifiable. The health and powered by fossil fuels. Although they use less environmental benefits of recy­ energy and thus create less emissions than cling, including energy conservation, toxic emissions reductions, and natural gas-powered furnaces, electric preservation of resources, are far more difficult to quantify. Health he ' furnaces cannot use as much recy­ and environmental benefits are somewhat indirect and are Foundation cled glass, so they are not as valued differently from individual to individual. Still, advo­ for Research on Economics and efficient. The consequence cates of recycling argue that the more intangible benefits the Environment (FREE) is a nonprofit is a “co n u n d ru m ,” says ofFer the most compelling case for recycling. research and education foundation commit­ Scarlett. Cutting down on energy used to manufacture with ted to environmental quality, freedom and eco­ The Keep America virgin materials means cutting down on pollutants like nomic progress. FREE is a leading force behind Beautiful study also quali­ carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulfur oxides, and the movement for free-market environmentalism, fies its conclusions about volatile organic compounds, according to a report pub­ hosts seminars for journalists and federal judges, the environmental advan­ lished by Keep America Beautiful, Inc. Recycling advo­ and publishes a quarterly newsletter. Contact tages of manufacturing with cates argue that recycling cuts down on the amount of FREE at 945 Technology Boulevard recycled instead of virgin dioxin released into the environment from bleaching of *rl01F, Bozeman, Montana 59715, material. “It is possible that virgin pulp, for example. phone 405/585-1776. the total energy requirements Recycling paper also saves trees! Trees reduce the amount associated with increased recycling of carbon dioxide present in the environment that contributes to could be greater than manufacturing global warming. According to Kenneth Skog, a researcher at the U.S. with virgin raw materials. For example, ship­ Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, “The cumulative ping recovered materials extremely long distances to end markets effect is noticeable.” Skog estimates that recycling paper instead of may negate any energy savings realized in the manufacturing process.” cutting down trees can add an additional 12-13 million metric tons Coupled with these issues is the problem of resolving how much of carbon dioxide stored in forests each year, depending on the material should be recycled. Reid Lifset, associate director at the Yale amount of paper recycled. “It’s a notable addition to the benefits of recycling,” he says. The federal government’s Climate Change Action Plan includes RECYCLING, CONTINUED paper recycling as one way to cut down on greenhouse gases, but the ON PAGE 1 1 . T 10 Ea r t h day ’9 6 RECYCLING, CONTINUED FROM PAGE lO most people simply sorting recyclable Qovem m ent rule items into the prop­ er container to be books are full of laws collected—recycling involves a host of that give virgin m ate­ complex questions. Nevertheless, recy­ rials an advantage cling seems to be over recycled ones. here to stay, as soci­ ety, including house­ holds and manufac­ turers, adapts to accommodate the issues of recycling and looks beyond the curbside at its lasting effects. Program on Solid Waste Policy, argues that a 50 percent recycling goal is economically and technically feasible. And Storat says the paper industry’s goal is to recover and recycle half of all the paper used in the United States by the year 2000. But setting such goals has to be done carefully, according to David Sobers, vice president and national practice manager for solid waste with Woodward-Clyde, an environmental consulting firm. Taking a recycling goal that is effective in one locality and trying to impose it on a wider area may not work, Sobers main­ tains. Market conditions, transportation systems, even the purity of the recycled material can vary from one area to another. If goals are set without careful analysis of the local conditions, “one can overregulate and cause greater environmental emissions and ® ® & costs” than disposal in a properly engineered landfill, he argues. This article originally appeared in Environmental Health Arriving at a broad understanding of the economic and Perspectives, November 1995. environmental Impacts of recycling compared with using virgin materials—a so-called life cycle analysis— is evolving. Susan Thornloe, a research engi­ neer at the EPA, heads a three-year study aimed at providing definitive answers. TH E G O V E R N M E N T ’S W A R O N R EC Y C LIN G “W hat we’re in the process of doing is iden­ tifying where information exists and where data gaps are,” she says. Right now, By Charles Oliver Thornloe says the picture is incomplete, if not misleading. “W hat we’re trying to do is ovemment at all levels is doing everything it and disposal rules when they are used or have been something that is scientifically driven and is can to encourage and even require recycling. recycled, even though the very same materials aren’t objective,” she says. covered by the laws when they are in a virgin form. Or is it? The debate over recycling’s economic The advantage this gives to makers of virgin materi­ I and environmental impact is certain to con­ Environmentalists charge that many government als is obvious. tinue. For all its superficial simplicity—for rules actually discourage recycling. And some free- G market economists agree with them. As more governments debate recycling laws, the chance for these laws working at cross-purposes with other statutes increases dramatically. Even as one law, for instance, mandates the use of recycled material in some product, another forbids used content in some other good. And even as one agency enacts rules to artificially create a market for recycled goods, anoth­ er enacts rules that tend to stamp out such markets. Government rule books are full of laws that give vir­ gin materials an advantage over recycled ones, claims Alexander Volokh, an assistant policy analyst at the libertarian Reason Foundation. He cites Food and Drug Administration rules on food packaging as an example. The law requires the FDA to make sure that food packaging is “suitably pure.” But no one knows how pure “suitably pure” is. Recycled materials have a harder time meeting a strict standard of purity than virgin materials. The FDA doesn’t ban recycled content. But Volokh charges that the FDA’s review process is too lengthy and the standards it uses to judge recycled goods are too strict. “The important question for consumers isn’t how ‘pure’ the packaging is, but whether any impurities affect the quality or safety of the food. Safety should be the standard by which packaging is judged, not purity,” Volokh said. Hazardous waste is another area where government policies discourage recycling. The U.S. generates over 13 million tons of hazardous waste each year. Less than 10 percent of this gets recycled. Experts say this figure could be higher, but federal laws dealing with hazardous waste often make recycling difficult. Many materials are subject to strict record-keeping, storage The problems for recyclers are made even worse by the Superfund Act. This law provides for the cleanup of sites contaminated by hazardous wastes. Recyclers can be held responsible for cleanup costs if they have sold metal to someone who has contaminated a site, but the government doesn’t go after those who sell comparable virgin materials to the same person. The reason: Virgin materials aren’t considered waste. “What this means is that those who deal in recycled materials have to shoulder a cost of doing business— a great cost—that producers of virgin materials don’t,” said Tom Wolfe, managing director for gov­ ernment relations at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, a trade group. “If you ask the people in our business, their biggest complaint is Superfund,” he added. Federal laws aren’t the only ones that can affect recy­ cling. Each city and county has its own set of build­ ing codes, and these codes often prevent builders from using materials made from recycled goods. For instance, many codes explicitly state that pipes must be made from virgin materials. A t other times, the codes don’t specifically call for virgin materials, but the specifications are so precise that only virgin mate­ rials can qualify. “It’s basically what you get when you have so many agencies pursuing so many different agendas,” said Volokh. “These agendas can often come into conflict, particularly as each agency pushes its rules to extremes,” he added. ® ® ® Charles Oliver writes for Investor’s Business Daily. A longer version of this article appeared in the December 5, 1995 issue. Ea r t h Day ’9 6 11 are we r u n n in g out o il ? of By Edward D . Porter and Sally Brain Qentille any Americans believe that the United States—and the world—are rapidly running out of oil. Because oil by its very nature is an exhaustible resource and Americans use a lot of it, some people picture the day when their local service station will have a sign out, “No more gasoline—ever.” The facts, fortunately, paint a different picture. The mere potential for exhaustibility does not mean exhaustion is inevitable. The day of oil’s demise isn’t even on the horizon. When it finally does come, it will likely be due to an advance in technology—the discovery of a superior way to create energy—rather than to resource exhaustion. M Fa l s e pr ed ictio ns Since the dawn of the petroleum industry in the mid-19th century, concern has been expressed about the imminent exhaustion of the world’s petroleum supplies. From today’s perspective, such concerns were certainly premature, and even ludicrous: “Hurry, before this wonderful product is depleted from Nature’s laboratory!” —advertisement for “Kier’s Rock Oil,” 1855 “. . . the United States [has] enough petroleum to keep its kerosene lamps burning for only four years. . . ” —Pennsylvania State Geologist Wtigley, 1874 “. . . although an estimated two-thirds of our reserve is still in the ground, . . . the peak of [U.S.] production will soon be passed—possibly within three years.” —David White, Chief Geologist, USGS, 1919 “ . . . it is unsafe to rest in the assurance that plenty of petroleum will be found in the future merely because it has been in the past.” —L. Snider and B. Brooks, AAPQ Bulletin, 1936 More recently, The Limits to Qroivth-—a report produced in 1972 by an organization called The Club of Rome—said the world had only between 20 and 31 years’ worth of known petroleum reserves left. But 22 years later, the world had discovered enough oil to have more known reserves than at any time since 1948! Additionally, new reserves.are being found throughout the world every year. P roved oil reserves The amount of oil produced by the oil industry each year is measured with relative precision. But the vol­ ume of oil remaining in the ground is unobservable—and therefore highly speculative. Consequently, estimates of the amount of oil remaining in the earth’s crust are extremely uncertain. Current estimates of proved reserves in the U.S. stand at approximately 23 billion barrels. Globally, proved oil reserves stand at nearly a trillion barrels, enough to sustain 1993 production for another 45 years. These estimates, however, are very misleading. In 1945, for example, proved reserves in the United States amounted to 20 billion barrels. Between 1945 and the end of 1993, 135 billion barrels were produced—more than six times the entire amount 12 Earth day ’9 6 known to exist in 1945! Perhaps even more surprisingly, oil reserves at the end of that period stood at 23 billion barrels—3 billion barrels more than total reserves in 1945! W here did the m issing oil come from? The answer to the riddle is that proved reserves change over time. Over the 48-year period between 1945 and 1993, for example, 138 billion barrels of new domestic reserves had been added, more than four times the level of reserves at the beginning of the period. The definition of “proved reserves” was set in 1925, when the American Petroleum Institute (API) defined domestic reserves as the volume of crude oil that geological and engineering information indicate, beyond reasonable doubt, to be recoverable in the future from an oil reservoir under existing economic and operating conditions. API issued reports on U.S. proved reserves in 1934, in 1936, and then annually until 1979, when the U.S. Department of Energy took over the task. Explicitly excluded was any estimate of future reserve additions at known fields that are probable but not yet proved, as well as future reserves from undis­ covered fields, on grounds that “an estimate of reserves which are to come from fields yet to be discovered involves so many uncertainties that it would be gross­ ly inaccurate and misleading." While the narrow definition facilitated clarity, it was also obvious that the measure had no bearing on long-run supply potential. The results have been pub­ lic confusion and groundless fears of exhaustion of all available supplies just a few Ihort years ahead. Proven reserves, in other words, don’t represent total oil resources, just as items on grocery store shelves don’t represent our total food supply. Proven reserves represent a minimum of the recoverable resource, the amount that would be produced if no further discoveries were made, no advances to technol­ ogy occurred, and no changes in prices or other economic conditions occurred. In fact, these parameters are changing all the time, and they explain why we never seem to tun out of oil. ESTIMATING RESOURCES So how much oil is there, really? The ultimately recoverable domestic resource base in the U.S. is estimated by the U.S. Department of Energy to be between 263 billion and 368 billion barrels, of which we have consumed about 164 billion barrels. This leaves a domestic resource base of between 99 and 204 billion barrels, which would support production at recent levels for 38 to 78 years. The U.S. Geological Survey esti­ mates that global ultimately recover­ able oil resources total 2.3 trillion barrels (with a band of uncertainty between 2.1 and 2.8 trillion), of which 700 billion barrels have already been produced. Conse­ quently, between 1.4 and 2.1 trillion barrels remain to be produced worldwide. This would sustain cur­ rent rates of world consumption from 63 to 95 years. Im p o rta n tly , th is assumes that between 4.1 and 5.4 trillion barrels are left in the ground as unrecover­ able. Technological change could—and in all likelihood will—extend this lifetime. Every one per­ cent increase in the average recovery rate would OIL, CONTINUED ON PAGE 13 OIL, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 add between 60 and 80 billion barrels to resource estimates, or enough to last an extra three to four years. New geophysical imaging technologies permit more precise mapping and better characterization of the resource base. New drilling materials, equipment, and methods allow far more flexible access to complicated geologic structures. In addition, far more of the potential area for new petroleum discoveries has now been explored, although major areas of the earth still remain lightly explored. T he day of oil’s demise isn’t even on the horizon . W hen it finally does come, it will likely be due to an advance in tech­ nology— the discovery of a superior way to create energy— rather than to resource exhaustion. UNCONVENTIONAL RESOURCES ARE EVEN LARGER In addition to the world’s abundant conventional oil resources, huge supplies of unconventional sources of oil are well known, although they currently are not economically feasible to produce. The principal unconvention­ al resources are oil shale, heavy and extra-heavy oil, and bitu­ men (natural tar). These unconventional oil resources are about three times as large as the volume of original conven­ tional oil in place, and about ten times the volume of remaining recoverable conven­ tional oil worldwide. While most of these resources are still too costly to compete with conventional oil, much of it would be more competitive with oil than many of the “alternative fuels” being advanced by government policy. GROWING RELIANCE ON IMPORTS The fact that world oil resources are abundant should take care of con­ cerns that we are running out of oil. But the world will also become more dependent on the resources concentrated in the Middle East, where two-thirds of proved reserves are located. This increased reliance on imports will be quite striking for the United States in particular. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, imports will increase from about 40 percent of total American oil consumption in 1990 to almost 60 percent in 2010, a record high. It is worth noting, however, that access to America’s oil World oil resources resources for exploration and production has been severely are abundant, and, curtailed during recent years. if anything, likely to Despite advances that reduce the footprint necessary for become even more so. drilling and production, many environm entalists oppose granting access to the most promising fields on federal lands and offshore. While the United States has known and economical resources that could be produced to meet domestic energy needs, access to many of these resources has been blocked, resulting in an artificial limit on U.S. oil supplies and the necessity to import a larger share of total oil consumed. THE ROLE OF MARKETS AND GOVERNMENTS During the 1970s, governments, especially the United States, based their policies on the premise that energy was too important to be left to markets. Consequently, they attempted to micromanage supplies and prices in order to limit vulnerability to future disruptions. Prices were controlled, and refiners were given “entitlements” to artificially cheap domestic supplies. It is now widely recognized that the gasoline lines, regional supply short­ ages, reduced domestic supply and artificially high growth of imports were the result, not of physical shortages stemming from embargoes or resource con­ straints, but of misguided government price and allocation schemes. The socalled “energy crisis” was the result of government policies, not exhaustion of available resources. Clearly, the world market during that time was imperfect, since a cartel (OPEC) was exerting its market power via restrictions on its own supply. This imperfection was the ratio­ nale for government inter­ vention. What was not Known Unconventional Crude O il Resources widely recognized, however, (billions of barrels) was that such a market imperfection may be a nec­ World Source United States Non-U.S. essary, but certainly not a Heavy and sufficient, condition for extra^heavy oil 605 31 574 direct government controls Recoverable on the industry. Govern­ bitumen 436 429 7 ment never had, nor could Oil shale 5,600 13,883 8,283 have had, sufficient infor­ mation, authority or policy Total unconventional 5,638 9,286 14,924 instrum ents to allocate resources better than the A m e r ic a n P e tr o le u m I n s t it u t e market, even a flawed mar­ ket. In retrospect, such con­ trols aggravated a bad situation by stimulating consumption and discouraging domestic production. In the 1980s, governments finally abandoned these attempts at microman­ agement in favor of reliance on natural market forces, accumulations of strategic reserves, and the traditional government policy instru­ ments of diplomacy and mil­ Proved W orld O il Reserves, 19 50-1993 itary readiness. Under this regime, world demand and non-OPEC supply drastically undermined OPEC’s market share in the first half of the decade. Even during the Gulf War, despite the interrup­ tions of supplies from Kuwait and Iraq, both the magnitude and duration of the disrup­ tion to western economies was extremely modest. *Rem/2mmg supply at current consumption rates in year o f estimate A p a rt from th ese A m e r ic a n P e tr o le u m I n s t it u t e changes in government poli­ cy, a number of private actions have also contributed to reducing vulnerability. First, financial institutions and instruments, such as spot and futures markets, significantly redistribute and manage the risks associ­ ated with supply disruptions far more efficiently than any instruments available in the 1970s. For this reason alone, the costs associated with any disruption today Proved W orld O il Reserves and Cum ulative Production, 1960-1993 would be far lower than those of the 1980s. Second, the chances of a deliberate, financially moti­ vated supply shock by OPEC or some other group have been reduced by a number of .new trade and investment linkages between OPEC states and Western govern­ ments, such as significant downstream integration pro­ jects in Europe and the United States by major pro­ I960 1970 1980 1990 ducers including Saudi A m e rica n P e tr o le u m I n s t it u t e Arabia and Kuwait, as well as Venezuela. Lo o k in g ahead The prospects for world petroleum supply growth in the next several decades are far brighter than ever before. World oil resources are abundant, OIL, CONTINUED ON Ea r t h D ay ’9 6 PAGE 14 13 OIL, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13 and, if anything, likely to become even more so. Oil markets, thanks to the growth in international trade and investment and new financial instruments, have become more resilient and efficient. No one should suggest that there are no risks associated with growing world trade in petroleum from the Persian Gulf. There are such risks, and they are sizable, and they need to be taken seri­ ously. But the appropriate responses are not to reduce oil consumption in the United States or mandate inferior alternatives. Rather, they are to establish an international military and diplomatic framework for secure commerce, thereby unleash­ H o w A u t o m o b il e s C l e a n e d u p T h e ir ing the economic benefits that resource abun­ dance offers to the world. 0 € Edward Porter and Sally Qentille are economists at the American Petroleum Institute. have Act By Joseph Bast ow serious a threat to the environment do automobiles pose? According to Vice President A1 Gore: H We now know that their cumulative impact on the global environment is posing a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever again likely to confront. Whew! Cars are a highly visible source of pollution and conspicuous con­ sumers of a nonrenewable energy resource, petroleum. And their concentration in urban areas, where they contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone and smog, makes them a favorite target of environmentalists. But are they really a “mortal threat” to our nation’s security? Today’s new cars emit 97 percent less hydrocarbons, 96 percent less carbon monoxide, and 90 percent less nitrogen oxide than those built twenty years ago. CARS AND AIR POLLUTION Automobiles and other forms of transportation are responsible for approximately one-third of man­ made nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compound emissions, onefifth of particulate emissions, twothirds of carbon monoxide emis­ sions, and less than 5 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions. These numbers are large enough to warrant serious atten­ tion by environ mentalists, and no one disagrees that cleaning up auto emissions would help improve urban air quality. Less widely acknowledged, how­ ever, is the considerable progress that already has been made in reducing the rate at which individual cars produce pollution. Indeed, this record is one of the most dramatic and unsung environmental success sto­ ries of the 1980s and 1990s. Consider the following accomplishments: 0 Today’s new cars emit 97 percent less hydro­ carbons, 96 percent less carbon monoxide, and 90 percent less nitrogen oxide than those built twenty years ago. 0 Cars purchased in the 1990s will emit about 80 percent less hydrocarbons and 60 percent less nitrogen oxide during their life­ times, even though they will be owned longer and driven farther. Between 1970 and 1991, total highway vehicle emissions of hydrocarbons dropped 66 percent, carbon monoxide emissions by 59 percent, and nitrogen oxide emissions by 21 percent—despite the doubling of vehicle miles traveled. 0 14 E a r t h d a y ’9 6 0 Emission standards for the U.S. auto fleet are more strict than those of other countries. For example, for the model years 1981-1988, the average emissions for cars sold by General Motors in the U.S. equaled emissions of the lowest-emitting Japanese cars sold in the U.S. 0 In the European Community, catalytic converters were required in most new cars beginning in 1993; the U.S. has required them in new cars since 1975. Current trends in technology and public policy ensure that air pollution from cars will continue to decline through the 1990s and beyond: 0 Since it takes about 15 years for a passenger car fleet to turn over, fewer than one-third of all the motor vehicles on the road today were built to meet stricter air pollution standards. 0 Between 1987 and 2000, the natural rate of turnover in the domestic auto and truck fleet will produce further reductions of 50 percent in hydrocarbon emissions, 52 percent in carbon monoxide emissions, and 34 percent in nitrogen oxide emis­ sions, without any changes in current emission standards for cars and trucks. 0 Beginning in 1995, in accordance with the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, oil companies began selling reformulated gasoline in the nine cities with the worst ozone problems. The new gasoline will cut vehicle emissions of hydrocarbons and air toxins by at least 15 percent, and all lead and other heavy metals will be removed. B efore there THERE WERE cars, were HORSES Often forgotten in the debate over automobiles and the environ­ ment is the pollution created by the modes of tra n s p o rta tio n th a t cars replaced. Prior to motorized travel, Americans didn’t ride bicycles: They rode (or sat in carriages pulled by) horses. Fred L. Smith, a former senior policy analyst for the EPA and now president of the Competitive Enterprise Insti­ tute, gives this vivid and unpleas­ ant description of the impact hors­ es had on American cities less than one hundred years ago: Cars create pollution. But it’s also true that cars may well have dramatically decreased overall pollution. . . . A horse produces approximately 45 pounds of manure each day. In high-density urban environments, masAUTOMOBILES, CONTINUED ON PAGE 15 AUTOMOBILES, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14 sive tonnages accumulated, requiring constant collection and disposal. Flies, dried dung dust, and the smell of urine filled the air, spreading disease and irritating the lungs. On rainy days, one walked through puddles of liquid wastes. Occupational diseases in horse-related industries were common. Smith goes on to report that New York City in the 1890s had N ew York City in to dispose of 15,000 dead horses every the 1890s had to year, a huge public health and environ­ dispose of m ental problem . Often, these rotting dead horses every corpses were hauled in open-air wagons to year, a huge public the edge of town, health and environ­ where they were dumped into huge m ental problem, kettles and heated over coal fires (with­ out emission con­ trols) until they were “reduced” into grease, later to be sold to the manufacturers of can­ dles and lubricants. The remains of the dead animals that couldn’t be sold were dumped, untreated, into the nearest river or lake. Today’s automobile looks pretty good by comparison. year 2000 buying the new “clean fuels” mandated by the law. These are huge sums of money to buy so little improvement in air quality. It is a safe bet that applying this money to other, more serious, environmental problems would produce “more bang for the buck.” Should we give up on reducing auto emissions even further? No, but fur­ Reduction ther progress requires that we adopt new tactics. in New Vehicle Emissions Since 1960s (based on 1995 Federal 49-state emission standards) C A F E STANDARDS AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION Passenger Cars Average fuel economy for new cars in the U.S. rose from 14 miles per gallon in 1973 to nearly 30 miles per gallon in 1992. During the 1970s, improvements in fuel economy were driven by con­ sumer demand. High gasoline prices led consumers to prefer cars with better gas mileage, and foreign car manufacturers expanded their market share dur­ ing these years partly by filling this need. NOx During the 1980s, however, declining gasoline prices and the overall improvement in fuel econo­ Light-Duty Trucks Under 3,750 lbs. GVWR my left little market demand for further progress. 100 From this time forward, improvements in fuel econ­ omy have been driven by government regulations 80 requiring that car and truck manufacturers achieve 60 fuel economy levels called CAFE standards 40 (Corporate Average Fuel Economy). 20 To meet CAFE standards, car manufacturers 0 have made most of the major technological changes likely to significantly improve fuel economy, Environmental Protection Agency including downsizing, lightweighting, reducing engine size, adding fuel injection, and converting to front-wheel drive. As was the case with auto emissions, further improvements in T h e H igh c o s t o f fuel economy will come at a steep price. Reducing the weight C hasing Z ero T *Evergreen of cars still further may make some cars too unsafe to drive. The biggest barrier to reduc­ Freedom Foundation is a non­ Research by Robert Crandall at the Brookings ing auto emissions even further is profit research institute focusing' on Institution and John Graham at Harvard University that removing the final few government policies in the state of estimates that 2,200 to 3,900 lives are lost grams of exhaust emissions Washington. Its programs address tax, bud­ and 20,000 serious injuries occur each year from new cars is much more get, and health care issues as well as land use, in traffic accidents due to the downsizing expensive than were the initial environmental protection, and natural resource and lightweighting of cars. Motor Vehicle reductions. Here, as in many management. Publications include the Policy If government CAFE standards are Industry Investment in other areas of environmental Highlighter, a newsletter titled EFF’s raised still higher, manufacturers may Emissions Control protection, the law of diminish­ Washington Report, and frequent special attempt to comply with the law by producing ing returns applies. This rule of reports and studies. Contact them (in billions of 1987 dollars) more small cars and light trucks and fewer big common sense says that the closer at RO. Box 552, Olympia, cars and heavy trucks. But here is what is most we come to the goal of zero emis­ WA 98507, phone 360/ likely to happen: sions, the more costly it becomes to 956-3482. eliminate each unit of pollution. Many people will choose not to buy the smaller With between 90 and 97 percent of emis­ cars. Already, CAFE standards on passenger vehicles sions already removed from car exhausts since 1970, and with fleet have increased the sales of small trucks and minivans, turnover bringing the level of reductions to 99 percent or higher by which usually get lower gas mileage. Truck sales now the year 2000, it may be time to declare victory and move on. account for approximately 40 percent of the U.S. Ford estimates that the tighter emission standards already con­ vehicle market. tained in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments will increase the cost of each of its cars by $1,125, yet this investment will buy a reduction Or, people will hold onto their big cars longer, slow­ in exhaust emissions ing down turnover in the car fleet and once again defeat­ so tiny it will have no ing the purpose of CAFE. measurable effect on U.S. Department of Commerce, urban air quality. Between 2 ,2 0 0 and Even if people buy 'Smaller cars, higher fuel economy Bureau of Economic Analysis The “clean fuels” lowers the cost of each mile traveled, meaning many peo­ provisions of the lives are lost ple will choose to drive more often and for longer dis­ Clean Air Act will tances, resulting in litde if any actual reduction in the amount of and 2 0 ,0 0 0 serious require the U.S. gasoline consumed. refining industry to injuries occur each spend $37 billion All of these shifts and changes in consumer behavior work to more (in 1990 dol­ cancel whatever energy savings might otherwise be achieved by rais­ year in traffic acci­ lars) during the next ing CAFE standards. Meanwhile, complying with higher standards ten years meeting would impose major costs, inconveniences, and risks on consumers dents due to the regulatory require­ and business. ments and retooling. downsizing and light­ Consumers will be spending $18 billion weighting of cars. AUTOMOBILES, CONTINUED a year more by the ON PAGE 16 15,000 3,900 Ea r t h Day ’9 6 15 AUTOMOB4LES, CONTINUED FROM PAGE .15 C onclusion Environmentalists can congratulate themselves on the role they played to help clean up the American automobile. Without their pressure it is unlikely that such stringent emission standards would The automobile is not incompatible w ith a clean and safe environment. T he C old have been imposed. But the techniques used to reduce pollution in the past aren’t necessarily effective methods to use today ot in the future. Continued tightening of emission and CAFE standards, for exam­ ple, would waste billions of dollars to achieve very little real environmental protection. Some environmentalists seem to imagine that the Earth will be placed in grave danger unless most Americans begin using bicycles rather than cars to commute to their jobs and Fa c t s on visit family members. Such flights of fancy are unnecessary. The automobile is not incompatible with a clean and safe environment. As the progress already made continues into the next decade, it is clear that we can have both clean air and the essential mobility that automobiles give us. V ® © Joseph Bast is president of The Heartland Institute. global w a r m in g By Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D. e’ve been bombarded with information that a disaster awaits us. A tele­ risk by delaying CO 2 emission restrictions while we wait for better information vision special was even done on the subject, full of parched, cracking from climate experts? farmlands, crying babies, and sweaty adults. Everywhere we turn, we The current computer forecasts, in fact, are dismally inaccurate. They fail in hear: “'The earth is melting and it’s every respect when compared to all because we are burning fossil what the earth’s temperature actu­ fuels.” ally did in response to the buildup NORTHERNHEMISPHERE As a scientist, I like to exam­ of greenhouse gases in recent ine the facts. On this issue, the years. scientific facts say we are overre­ Modem temperature records acting. began in 1880 and show a warm­ ing of about 0.5°C to the present. co 2 Truths As noted earlier, during that same Let’s look at the facts. period greenhouse gases in the Burning coal and other fossil fuels atmosphere increased by the does release carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) equivalent of a 50 percent increase into the atmosphere. CO 2 is one in CO 2 . The forecasts predict a of the “greenhouse gases” of which warming of 0.5 to 2°C for that increases during the last 100 years increase in carbon dioxide. The are blamed for the 0.5° C rise in IPCC reports says “the size of this average global temperature. [observed] warming is broadly con­ Greenhouse gases, naturally sistent with predictions of climate Year present in the atmosphere, act like models . . .” an insulating blanket over the But the timing of the tempera­ SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE earth and help warm the planet. ture rise is completely inconsistent with the predictions. Nearly all Without them, the average tem­ the 0.5° C temperature rise perature of the earth would be a occurred before 1940, but most of chilly minus 18°C. the CO 2 entered the atmosphere Adding CO 2 to the atmos­ after 1940. Increased greenhouse phere by burning coal should con­ gases cannot be the cause of a tribute to the natural greenhouse temperature rise that occurred effect and make the earth slightly before the gases were added to the warmer. Predicting how much atmosphere. warmer the earth might become is the heart of the climate change There is more. From 1940 to debate. 1970, CO 2 built up rapidly in the The predictions are based on atmosphere. According to the greenhouse calculation, the tem­ elaborate mathematical models carried out on large computers, perature of the earth should have World Climate Report 1(3): 4; 1995. Reprinted with permission. risen rapidly; instead, the tempera­ and they vary considerably based on who is doing the calculations. ture actually fell. For example, the U.N. Intergov­ ernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says if greenhouse gases continue to NUMEROUS CONTRADICTIONS accumulate in the atmosphere, in the next 50 years the temperature of the earth Greenhouse gases cannot explain the rise in global temperature prior to 1940 will rise between 15 and 45°C. The IPCC “best estimate” is a rise of 2.5°C. This and cannot explain the temperature drop between 1940 and 1970. The predictions forecast has led to serious discussions of the need for limiting CO 2 emissions by of greenhouse theorists are contradicted by the temperature record to such a degree taxes or mandates. Such a major policy decision demands that we ask some basic questions: Are COLD . FACTS, CONTINUED the computer forecasts accurate? Are they based on scientific facts? What do we ON PAGE 17 W 16 Ea rth day ’9 6 COLD FACTS, CONTINUED FROM PAGE D o n ’t B lame pollution 16 Greenhouse theory advocates explain these discrepancies in the United States as well as the Arctic by saying pollution has blocked as to indicate the major buildup of greenhouse gases did not have sunlight and masked the anything like the predicted impact on global climate during the last warming. But air pollu­ century. tion has decreased sub­ U.S. temperature records are another clear example of the inac­ stantially in the United T he entire hypothe­ curacy of the forecasts. The forecasts say the United States should States since the 1970s. have warmed by at least 2°C during the last 50 years—faster than (See tables.) sis of a disastrous the rise in mean global temperatures because land warms quicker In the Arctic, pollu­ than ocean. However, U .S. te m p eratu re re c o rd s show no tion also has been manmade global warming trend during that time. decreasing, and is, in any The global temperature record for the last decade or two also warming is suspect. case, too small to mask contradicts the greenhouse forecasts. According to the the enormous predicted forecasts, the buildup of greenhouse gases is warming. Pollution can­ now so enormous that a greenhouseT - h, not explain these dis­ crepancies. induced warming should have risen George C. I mentioned earlier that the evidence shows computer fore­ clearly out of the background of Marshall Institute, chaired by natural fluctuations in climate. casts exaggerate the current greenhouse warming by at least Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of This prediction can be a factor of five. Since future forecasts depend on the same the National Academy of Sciences, is a equations and computer programs as current forecasts, the checked by very precise read­ national “think tank” devoted to education­ ings of the earth’s average same level of exaggeration applies. If those forecasts are al programs especially in the field of science temperature, available from revised downward to agree with the current observations, and environmental policies. Its books and NASA satellites for the they say the manmade greenhouse warming in the next expert witnesses have played a prominent role century will be less than half a degree at most. Such a past 15 years. (See graphs in the national debate over global warming warming spread across half a century is inconsequential. on page 16.) and ozone depletion. According to the com­ Contact the George C. Marshall puter forecasts, the buildup of WHAT IF . . . Institute at 1730 M Street NW #502, greenhouse gases from fossil Suppose I am wrong, despite my reading of all the current­ Washington, DC 20036, phone fuels during that period should ly available scientific evidence. We could still delay imposing 202/293-9655. have caused global temperatures to new limits on CC>2 emissions for, say, five years, while scientists rise by about one-third of a degree, and search for more evidence of the magnitude of the greenhouse warm­ U.S. temperatures to warm by about twoing. Even if the greenhouse effect thirds of a degree. Instead, the satellite data show the average tem­ is as large as the computer equa­ perature of the earth has changed by less than one-tenth of a degree tions say (and we know that actu­ during the last 15 years. The satellites indicate the computer forecasts ally they are exaggerating the are exaggerating the size of the warming by at least a factor of five. effect by a large factor), a delay of Some researchers argue satellites do not yield accurate tempera­ five years turns out to mean a tures at ground level. NASA’s Dr. James Hansen told The Washington Air Pollutant Emission Estimates penalty of an extra tenth of a Post that if the satellite data don’t agree with his computations, degree temperature rise in the “there’s something % change next fifty years, beyond what the wrong with the data.” 1970 1990 Emission 1970-90 rise would have been if we had not Unfortunately for this delayed action. Such an increase view, the tempera­ 18.5 7.5 -60.5 Particulate matter T he current comput­ spread across a half century would tures measured at 21.2 28.3 -25.1 Sulfur oxides have negligible practical conse­ ground weather sta­ er forecasts, in fact, Nitrogen oxides 18.5 19.6 +5.9 quences for agriculture and all tions spread across 25.0 -25.2 18.7 VOCs other human activities. are dismally inaccu­ the North American Carbon monoxide 60.1 -40.7 101.4 A delay of five years before continent perfectly -96.5 203.8 Lead 7.1 imposing carbon taxes or CO 2 rate. They fail in agree with the satel­ -33.8 Total emissions 191.9 127.1 limits makes good sense. The lite data. computer forecasts of the earth’s every respect w hen Temperatures in climate fail to meet the rigorous the Arctic are an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requirements of the scientific compared to w hat even more sensitive method: a test of these computer test of the greenhouse the earth’s tempera­ forecasts against observations. The forecasts, because a Poor Air Days test has been made, and every pre­ ture actually did in p a rtic u la rly large diction that has been tested has warming is predicted 1984-86 1991-93 City been proven wrong. The entire response to the buildfor those latitudes. hypothesis of a disastrous man­ The significant warmSeattle 38 0 made global warming is suspect. up of greenhouse ing is p re d ic te d Minneapolis 55 1 because water absorbs Phoenix 276 20 gases in recent years. much more of the Denver 147 17 © ® © sun’s heat than ice, 210 New York 34 which reflects most of San Jose, CA 60 10 it back to space. W hen the ice covering the Arctic Ocean is Charlotte, NC 35 6 Dr. Sallie Baliunas is a Robert melted by the greenhouse effect, more water is exposed, the Dallas 31 6 Wesson Fellow at the Hoover amount of heat absorbed from the sun goes up, and the region Kansas City 19 Institution and chair of the Science 4 warms even more. Sacramento 195 45 Advisory Board of the Qeorge C. The computers say this amplifying effect should have caused Marshall Institute. nearly a degree of warming in the Arctic just in the last 15 years. But the satellites show no net warming in the Arctic during that period. Number of days that air quality Again the real world—which is the temperature readings—shows the fell below federal standards. computer forecasts are exaggerating global warming by a large factor. The Road Information Program (TRIP), 1994 The Air Is Getting Cleaner Ea r t h Day ’9 6 17 My Adventures in the Oz o n e La y e r The scientist who invented the instrument used to measure ozone thinks the threat o f ozone depletion is exaggerated. By S. Fred Singer, Ph.D. oncern over ozone depletion—the theory that man-made chemicals are thinning the Earth’s protective shield against ultraviolet (UV) radiation— is building up to a fever pitch. It is spurred on by lurid stories in the media. “Arctic Ozone Is Poised for a Fall,” scream the headlines. “Skin Cancer Is on the Rise!” Is it all hype? Or are there real grounds for worry? As we’ll see, the scientif­ ic basis for the much-touted ozone crisis may be evaporating—leaving the new breed of geo-eco-politician high and dry. C IT STARTED WITH THE S S T It all started with the Super Sonic Transport, or SST, just twenty years ago. The emerging environmental movement scored its first great victory by convinc­ ing Congress to cancel the program to build two SST prototypes that would have been tested in the stratosphere. When objections concerning noise and sonic booms didn’t bring down the program, the activists discovered the stratospheric ozone layer and the fact that a fleet of five hundred planes might have some effect on the ozone content of the upper atmosphere. Most influential was the argument that a reduction in ozone would allow more solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation to reach the earth’s surface, and thus increase the rate of skin cancers. That did it: the skin-cancer scare has been with us ever since, inextricably intertwined with the stratospheric-ozone issue. I first got involved in the SST issue in 1970 while serving as a deputy assistant administrator of the EPA. I was asked to take on the additional task of chairing an interagency committee for the Department of Transportation on the environmental effects of the SST. (I had some background in atmospheric physics, having been active in the earliest rock­ et experiments on the ozone layer, and I even invented the instrument that later become the main ozone meter for satellites.) There were many false starts. We knew so little about the upper atmosphere. The ozone problem didn’t come up until some­ time in 1970, as I recall; and then only in the context of the effects of the water vapor from the burning of the SSTs’ fuel. It was a year later before we came to realize that the main culprit would be, not H 2 O, but the small amount of nitrogen oxides (NOx) created in any combustion process. The first estimates suggested that some 70 percent of the ozone would be destroyed by an SST fleet; without the ozone shield, “lethal” ultraviolet radiation would stream down to sea level, and an epidemic of skin cancers would sweep the world. This scare campaign led to the cancellation of the SST project. Of course, the two prototypes—all that was authorized—wouldn’t have caused any noticeable effect; but the SST opponents had succeeded in confusing the issue. England and France went on to build the Concorde—with no apparent environ­ mental consequences. Only later was it discovered that there were also natural sources of stratos­ pheric NOx, and the SST effect soon fell to 10 percent. But then laboratory measurements yielded better data, and by 1978 the effect had actually turned positive: SSTs would add to ozone! It became slightly negative again after 1980, but by then the SST had been forgotten and attention was concentrated on the effects of CFCs. Few outside my special field know about these wild gyrations in the theoreti­ cal predictions. But those of us who lived through them have developed a certain humility and affection toward the ozone layer. It’s a matter of some irony that cur­ 18 Ea r t h day ’9 6 rent theory predicts that aircraft exhaust counteracts the ozone-destroying effects of CFCs. But remember: it’s only a theory, and it could change. w hat about Me t h a n e ? Is Or Once Pandora’s box had been it all hype1 are opened, we all began to look for other ways to affect stratospheric there real grounds for ozone. During my EPA tenure I worry? became intrigued by the idea that human-produced (or, at least, human-related) methane could affect the stratosphere. Methane is a long-lived gas in the atmosphere, very difficult to destroy. It was thought to be mainly due to natural sources, swamps and" things like that. But I soon realized that many important sources are related to human activities: rice paddies, cattle, and oil and gas wells, for example. I reached two conclusions: that about half the methane input is anthro­ pogenic and should therefore increase as population and GNP grow; and that methane can percolate up into the stratosphere, there to be attacked by solar UV radiation, eventually adding to the water vapor in the dry stratosphere. To my surprise I found that methane’s contri­ bution to water vapor is about as large as that feared to come from a hypothetical SST fleet. Public interest in methane theory was mild, to say the least. The American journal Science turned it down, based on the recommendation of the reviewer—a good friend, who then called to tell me he did it to protect my scientific reputation! It was finally published in 1971 in the British journal Nature. But no one got excited about it: stopping cows from belching and emitting other gaseous exhalations didn’t ignite the environmental community. Cows are so natural and low-tech. Not a great cause. And besides, controlling their emissions could be messy. AND NOW C F C S Chloroflourocarbons, or CFCs, are different. Brilliant work by a British scientist, James Lovelock, and the cal­ culations of two Californians, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland, demonstrated in 1974 the possibili­ ty that long-lived and normally quite inactive CFCs would per­ colate up into the stratosphere, and there be A n Antarctic hole decomposed and attack ozone. Environmental activists were should have no ecstatic. A t last, an industrial chemical to put on trial, and one effeCt whatsoever produced by big bad Du Pont and others of that ilk! What a worthy on cancer rates in successor to the SST, now that that issue was dead. the United States Regulation was not long in coming. By 1975, voluntary restraints were adopted on the use of CFCs in spray cans, an important but noncritical application. By 1978, the United States and some other Western nations had unilaterally banned CFC use in all aerosol applications. . OZONE, CONTINUED ON PAGE 19 OZONE, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18 But that was all for awhile. The other applications of CFCs did­ n’t have easy replacements. Substitutes hadn’t been developed; and they might turn out to be hazardous, toxic, or expensive—perhaps all of the above. Besides, replacing refrigerators, air conditioners, plasticfoam blowers, and electronic cleaning equipment loomed as an expensive undertaking. Most Europeans and the Japanese were not interested in join­ ing any global agreement, percent and further unilateral- action by the U.S. wouldn’t have decrease in the been very effective globally. On top of all this, the ozone layer would data from the labs and com­ increase U V puters were reducing the threat. A National Academy exposure to the of Sciences study in 1980 predicted an 18 percent same extent as ozone decrease, based on a certain standard CFC sce­ moving about nario. By 1982 the estimate had decreased to 7 percent, sixty miles south and by 1984 to between 2 and 4 percent. Ironically, much of the reduction was due to the discovery of the counteracting effects of other pollutants: methane, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide. So— putting these polluting gases into the atmosphere hastens the arrival of global warming by the greenhouse effect while reducing the destruction of ozone. Then along came the Antarctic “ozone hole.” A5 . The H ole in the ozone So, in November 1988, I finally published a short note in Eos, the house journal of the American Geophysical Union, the major pro­ fessional society in this field. The S ki n cancer S care Meanwhile, the hype was deafening. I remember one congres­ sional hearing in 1987—there were so many—where the witness was a noted dermatologist. He explained that since 1975, malignant melanoma (a skin cancer) had increased nearly 100 percent—a frightening but true statistic. He simply did not explain three other facts to the Congress or to the media: An Antarctic hole should have no effect whatsoever on cancer rates in the United States. In any case, melanomas have not been related directly to increased UV exposure. And finally, melanoma rates have increased by about 800 percent since statistics were first collected in 1935. There has been no cor­ responding change in the ozone layer or in the amount of ultravio­ let radiation reaching the surface. To the contrary, measurements of UV-B (the biologically active component) have shown a pronounced and steady decline at every location; UV intensities in American cities are lower today than in 1974- The cause of melanoma must include more than UV exposure. There does exist a correlation between UV-B intensity and benign, non-melanoma skin tumors. Their frequency clearly increas­ layer In 1985, a British group operating an ozone observing station at Halley Bay, Antarctica, published a result that came out of the blue. Beginning around 1975, every October, they observed a short-lived decline in the amount of stratospheric ozone. The amplitude of the decrease had grown steadily, reaching nearly 50 percent of the total ozone. The finding was quickly confirmed by satellite instruments, which also indicated that the phenomenon covered a large geograph­ ic region. The “smoking gun” had been found—so it seems. CFCs were immediately suspected; and indeed, chlorine compounds were observed in the region of ozone destruction. The process itself was a new one and had not been studied before; it involved the presence of ice clouds that formed in the polar winter in the coldest region of the earth’s atmosphere. The growth of the hole, we were told, was “obviously” connect­ ed to the rise in the atmospheric CFC concentration. And it seemed only a matter of time before the hole would expand and “swallow us all”—or at least all the world’s ozone. The Antarctica Ozone Hole, or AOH, put new life into the anti-CFC crowd. Dropping their earlier opposition, the industry rolled over and played dead, finally joining the environmental activists. It may have dawned on businessmen that with demand rising and supply limited or even declining, prices and profits could grow nicely. Those with safe substitutes might even gain market share and keep out competitors. Within the government, the strong push came from EPA and the State Department, where mid-level bureaucrats fashioned a steamroller that pushed the White House to propose, as a compro­ mise, a CFC production freeze, followed by a rollback to 50 percent. That was the upshot of the 1987 Montreal Protocol. But some things didn’t quite fit. I was puzzled by the sudden onset of the AOH in 1975. It suggested some kind of trigger, unlike­ ly to come from the steady increase of the atmospheric CFC content. What could it be? A climate fluctuation that cooled the stratosphere enough for the ice crystals to form? But if the cause was a cooling fluctuation, then the hole could disappear if the fluctuation went the other way. Or—the AOH might have existed before. I sent a letter to the editor of Science suggesting this—no luck. es as one approaches the equator, where the sun and the UV are both stronger, with tumor incidence more than doubling between Minnesota and southern Texas. But we should not assume that all the increase is due to higher UV intensities. Lifestyles in warmer climates are conducive to longer exposures and may therefore contribute at least as much to skin tumors as the UV values themselves. OZONE, CONTINUED ON Ea r t h PAGE Day 20 ’9 6 19 OZONE, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 One other factor they don’t much talk about: a 5 percent decrease in the ozone layer, as calculated by some of the more pes­ simistic scenarios, would increase UV expo­ sure to the same extent as moving about sixty miles south, the distance from Palm Beach to Miami, or from Seattle to Tacoma. An increase in altitude of one thousand feet would produce the same result. WHY THE HYPE? The current situation can fairly be summa­ rized as follows: 0 The CFC/ozone theory is quite incom­ plete and cannot as yet be relied on to make predictions. 0 The natural sources of stratospheric ozone have not yet been delineated, theo­ retically or experimentally. 0 The Antarctic ozone hole may be ephemeral; it may be controlled by climate factors rather than by CFCs. 0 The reported decline in global ozone may just be an artifact of the analysis. Even if real, its cause may be related to the declining strength of solar activity rather than to CFCs. The steady increase in malignant melanomas has been going on for at least fifty years and has nothing to do with ozone or CFCs. And the incidence of ordinary skin tumors has been greatly overstated. 0 theory of ozone depletion, plausible but quite on the decisive words of the immortal incomplete—and certainly not reliable in its Comrade Lenin. “Shto dyelat’l—What to do?” quantitative predictions. During the past The regulatory regime for CFCs adopted decade, the results of studies by the National in the Montreal Protocol is immensely com­ Academy of Science have varied all over the plicated. Enforcing it will be a nightmare, place. New scientific results, from the labora­ involving the use of trade barriers and sanc­ tory and the stratosphere, are pouring in con­ tions applied not only to CFCs but to prod­ stantly; the theory has been in a state of flux ucts manufactured with CFCs—such items as and is bound to change. foam plastics and electronic circuit boards The standard CFC/ozone theory did not that go into computers and TV sets. It will predict the ozone hole, nor can it account prove to be a contentious issue, particu­ for its future course. According to larly since special concessions recent reports, an ozone hole were given to Third World is just about to open in he nations and the USSR. S ® © There are several lessons from these technology, private property, economic stories of species recovery. One is that progress, and common sense. It publishes humans can care for and expand wildlife NWI Resource, a quarterly magazine, and Fresh Robert E. Qordon, Jr. is director of the populations not just through negative means such as bans on pesti­ Tracks, a monthly newsletter. Annual mem­ National Wilderness Institute in Washington, cides or restrictions on hunting until the population stabilizes—but bership costs $25. D.C. Qeorge S. Dunlop, formerly assistant through sound management techniques such as prescribed fires, Contact The National Wilderness secretary of agriculture for natural resources improvement of food and water sources, and other enhancements of Institute, 25766 Georgetown Station, and environment, is a member ofN W l’s nation­ habitat. Washington, DC 20007. al advisory board. Excerpted from the summer Most of these management techniques are site and situation specifAMERICAN WILDLIFE, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22 . The ic, not conducive to administration by a central state or federal bureau­ cracy. They involve trial-and-error experiments tailored to conditions in local PO PC O R N OR BEEF? Ten Qood Books on Environmentalism If you are surprised by some of the material pre­ sented in Earth Day ‘96, it may be because you haven’t done your homework. Popular writers, such as Lester Brown, Paul Ehrlich, and A1 Gore, don’t count as homework. They can be fun to read, and like popcorn their books can be difficult to put down. But where’s the beef? The following ten books are for people who take environmentalism seriously. If you really want to help save the planet, start reading! Environmental Qore, edited by John A. Baden. Pacific Research Institute, 1994. The scientists and econo­ mists who produced this “constructive response to Earth in the Balance,” by A1 Gore, deliver a devastat­ ing critique of Gore’s science, politics, and econom­ ics. The introduction by John Baden is worth the price of the book. 1990 issue of Policy Review. To subscribe for $19.95/year, call 800-304-0056. Readings in Risk, edited by Theodore S. Glickman and Michael Gough. Resources for the Future, 1993. Another brain-stretching book. This one will immunize you against the end-of-the-earth rhetoric that often passes for science in the envi­ ronmental movement. The True State of the Planet, edited by Ronald Bailey. Free Press, 1995. Ten leading scientists and analysts cover everything from population growth to air pol­ lution in this authoritative response to Lester Brown’s annual State of the World. Bailey’s book is so much better than Brown’s that after one taste, you’ll never go back. Visions Upon the Land, by Karl Hess, Jr. Island Press, 1992. If you think cattle ranchers are environmental criminals, guess again. Hess describes how govern­ ment policies frustrate the best intentions of every­ one who lives and works and plays in the Great American West and Southwest. Ranchers, according to Hess, could be the saviors of the West if only gov­ ernment policies weren’t so patently absurd. Environmentalism at the Crossroads, by Jonathan Adler. Capital Research Center, 1995. Adler analyzes the growing tension between the pro-market and antimarket wings of the environmental movement, and reveals the budgets and major sources of funding for leading environmental groups. The Heated Debate, by Robert C. Balling, Jr. Pacific Research Institute, 1992. One of the nation’s leading climatologists carefully dissects the theory and evi­ dence for global warming, and concludes that warm­ ing, if it occurs at all, would be much “kinder and gentler” than environmentalist spokespersons claim. No Turning Back, by Wallace Kaufman. Basic Books, 1994- A former lobbyist for the Wilderness Society dismantles “the fantasies of environmental thinking.” His conclusion, that “in civilization is the salvation of wilderness and of nature in general,” is a powerful challenge to anti-growth, zero-sum environmentalism. Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic, by Dennis T. Avery. Hudson Institute, 1995. Who says a con­ servative economist can’t have a sense of humor? Avery, a prominent agricultural economist, demolish­ es cherished myths about pesticides, population growth, natural food, deforestation, and more in this hilariously confrontational yet academically rigorous book. Science Under Siege, by Michael Fumento. William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993. This is the best introduction available to critical thinking about such human-health controversies as dioxin, electric and magnetic fields, and video display terminals. Fumento doesn’t argue or make claims; he teaches you the principles of toxicology and epidemiology so you can see through the scare tactics yourself. Rubbish! The Archaeology of Qarbage, by William Rathje and Cullen Murphy. HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. The country’s leading “garbologist” and his trustworthy assistant examine the myths and facts about solid waste. Did you know that virtually noth­ ing biodegrades in a modem sanitary landfill? By Joseph Bast EARTH Day ’9 6 T he Future of c h l o r in e Qreenpeace claims chlorine poses a major threat to human health. Scientists disagree. By Qordon W. Qribble, Ph.D. umerous reports in the media have ascribed possible detrimen­ tal health effects to chlorine, dioxin and other chlorinated chemicals, often subjecting the public to exaggerated and mis­ leading information. Greenpeace, a worldwide environmental activist group, has led the attack, pushing for a total ban on chlorine and chlorinated chem­ icals. Greenpeace charges that the use of chlorine in manufacturing processes and drinking water purification is causing higher rates of cancer than would otherwise occur. More recent­ ly, Greenpeace has claimed that the exposure of pregnant mothers to even tiny traces of chlorinated chemicals has negative effects on the development of their unborn children. Is Greenpeace right? S ho u ld c h lo rin e be banned ? N WHAT S c ientists say Greenpeace’s claims face formidable opposition from the scientific community. In public reports responding to Green­ peace’s campaign against chlorine, sev­ eral prominent groups of scientists and doc­ tors have emphasized that current regulations dealing with chlorinat­ ed chemicals are sufficient and that there is no need to ban the entire group. The Society of Toxicology declared in October 1994 that toxicologic principles do not support the banning of chlorine. In only the third position statement in its 35-year history, this 3,500member professional organization stated that the C linton Administration’s proposal to “develop a national strategy for sub­ stituting, reducing or prohibiting the use of chlorine and chlori­ nated compounds” is simplistic and ignores the basic principles of toxicology that govern risk assessment. All chlorine-containing compounds are not equal­ ly hazardous, continued the position statement, and a broad-based ban of this class “would be irresponsible and unscientific.” Moreover, the society added that the most scientifically sound approach is “to assess the toxicity of agents on a ch em ical-by-chem ical basis.” In April 1994, the American Chemical So­ ciety wrote to Congress say­ ing that it “sees no reason for singling out such an extensive group of chemicals for study,” and it urged the EPA to focus on chlori­ nated chemicals of primary concern. In June 1994, the American Medical Association urged the EPA to evaluate environmental risks on the basis of reliable data specific to each chlorinated compound. The Michigan Environmental Science Board, convened by the state’s governor to review the chlorine issue, concluded in July 1994 that there is “insufficient scientific evidence” to suggest that short­ lived chlorinated compounds produce environmental and health threats. The panel opposed “sunsetting” all uses of chlorine and 24 Ea r t h D ay ’9 6 organochlorines and stated that not all chlorine-containing com­ pounds are harmful. Dr. Lawrence Fischer, Director of the Institute for Environmental Toxicology at Michigan State U niversity and Chairman of the panel, said that “the focus on Is Qreenpeace chlorine is misplaced.” The , . . . . . . panel also found that curT i g h t , S h o u l d C h lO " rent regulations are “rea­ rine be banned? sonably adequate,” but that “periodic review, aggressive enforcement, and better monitoring” are needed. An extensive study published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology evaluated the use of chlorine in several industries, including the PVC, pulp and paper, drinking water, incineration, and pesticide industries. The 1,100-page study, published in September 1994, concluded that “although much remains to be learned about chlorinated organic chemicals, enough is known to ensure that now and in the future, they can be used and discharged with assurance that adverse effects will be absent.” PART OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT One reason to suspect that Greenpeace might be wrong is that many of the chlorinated chemicals it attacks are produced naturally and in huge quantities. They therefore cannot be “banned” any more than air, gravity or sunlight. chlorinated Chlorine is one of more than 100 elements c h e m iC O lS O fe that make up our universe , , ,, and is one of the 2 0 or so produced naturally elements that make up all and in huge living things. Chlorine occurs in nature in several quantities. forms, such as inorganic chloride salts (i.e., sodium chloride, common table salt) and the numerous chlorinated organic (i.e., containing carbon) compounds found in plants, the soil, the atmosphere and ocean life. The natural world contains more than 1,500 chlorine-containing chemicals. Many organochlorines—the very same class of chemicals that are on environmental hit lists—are produced naturally. For exam­ ple, 2,4-dichlorophenol, used to manufacture several pesticides and herbicides (including Agent Orange), is produced naturally by a species of Penidllium, the genus of mold that produces penicillin. The roster of living organisms known to produce natural chlori­ nated organic compounds is a long one: seaweeds, algae, assorted plants, some vegetables and fruits, fungi and mush­ rooms, lichen, microorgan­ isms, marinecreatures, million rrogs, insects and even ^ some mammals, in the American jobs are human body, white blood cells generate hypochlorite linked to chlorine to f i g h t i n f e c t i o n . Hydrochloric acid in the chemistry , stomach is essential for proper digestion; chloride Many Nearly 1.3 CHLORINE, CONTINUED ON PAGE 25 CHLORINE, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 24 ions are necessary for muscle and nerve function. Chlorine compounds are synthesized by many species of plants and animals for very specific metabolic purposes. They are essential for the normal growth and reproduction of those organisms. The ability of organisms to synthesize these com­ pounds has evolved over time under the stress of natural selection. Chlorine, in other words, is part of our natural ecosystem. Hydrogen chloride is produced in massive amounts in volcanoes, and many chloride salts are present in the earth’s crust. Combustion is also a major source of organochlorines. Natural combustion sources include lightning-induced forest and brush fires as well as volcanoes. Whenever organic material is burned in the pres­ ence of chloride, organochlorines are produced. These include dioxins, chloromethane and other chlorine-containing compounds. THE BENEFITS OF CHLORINE Why should we come to the defense of chlorine? For starters, almost everything we encounter in our daily life—from wood-veneer furniture, to luggage and shoes, to medical devices such as pacemakers—has had a chlorinated com­ pound included at some point in its production. N e a rly 1.3 m illio n American jobs are linked to chlorine chemistry. Chlorine is used to purify drinking water and to disinfect swimming pools, both of which might otherwise be contaminated with fecal microorganisms that could cause diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever and dysentery. Some 98 per­ cent of our public water systems are purified by chlorine or chlorine-based products. Chlorination is the water treatment of choice in North America, prevent­ ing inestimable deaths every year. In the words of the director of the International Life Sciences Institute’s Risk Science Institute, “chlorination and disinfection of the water supplies are the public health success story of the century.” The World Health Organization estimates that worldwide 25,000 children die every day from waterborne diseases resulting horn a lack of water disinfection. In Peru, the suspension of water chlorination as an experiment in 1991 resulted in a massive and unnecessary epidemic—causing more than one million cases of cholera and 19,000 deaths to date—that has spread to fourteen other South and Central American countries. Ozone has been suggested as a substitute for chlorine in water disinfection, but ozone is less effective than chlorine. Ozone breaks down very rapidly and thus does not guard against recontamination, while chlorine provides residual disinfec­ tion from the treatment plant to the tap. Additionally, there is no assurance that ozone’s by-products, including bromate (an animal carcinogen), will be any less toxic than by-products produced during chlorination. One of the most important uses of chlorine is in the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC, or vinyl). PVC is a versatile and nontoxic material that has a distinct advantage in many product applications and in the mar­ ketplace. The presence of chlorine in PVC makes this material inherently flame retardant, which is why PVC is used in many construction and fur­ nishing applications. PVC is the world’s leading electrical-insulating material, with more than 500 million pounds used annually for wire, cable and other electrical applications. In fact, PVC is used in a vast array of everyday products. On a typical day the aver­ age person will use more than a dozen PVC products, including luggage, shoes, raincoats and umbrellas, fabric and paper coatings, computers and keyboards, mag­ netic recording tape, recreational equipment, inflatable boats and water floats, baby strollers, furnishings, food packaging, garden hoses and lawn furniture, floor and wall coverings, and more. Chlorine is also an essential component in the production of many life-sav­ ing pharmaceuticals. Among the chlorine-containing pharmaceuticals is van­ comycin—an antibiotic used to fight hospital staphylococcal infections. Other pharmaceuticals that contain chlorine include drugs used- to treat depression, arthritis, fungal diseases, glaucoma, psoriasis, yeast infections, allergies, osteoporo­ sis, ulcers, malaria, coronary disease and cancer. The millions of American chil­ dren who develop middle-ear infections are now best treated with the chlorinecontaining antibiotics Ceclor and Lorabid. The D ioxin scare One way Greenpeace has gained attention to its campaign against chlorine is by linking it to dioxin, a widely feared chlorine-containing chemical. Upon clos­ er inspection, however, both the link and the basis for the tear appear suspect. The name “dioxin” technically refers to a family of about 75 chemicals, but in public discourse it generally refers to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), thought to be the most toxic of the group. Dioxins are produced dur­ T he entire U .S. ing any combustion process—waste incineration, running motor-vehicle p a p e r p u lp in d u S tr V engines, steel-making and smelting, r r ir i J residential wood burning and even for­ produces less than est fires. They are also produced when chlorine is used to bleach paper pulp, a one pound of dioxin fact often cited by Greenpeace as one each year. reason to ban or restrict the use of chlorine. The amount of dioxin produced by the paper pulp industry in the U.S. is extraordinarily small—less than one pound annually from the whole industry. Even this small amount is being steadily reduced as paper manufacturers switch from chlorine to chlorine dioxide, a less reactive form of chlorine that produces fewer toxic emissions. Greenpeace claims that incineration of chlorinecontaining products also produces dioxin. Once again, however, Greenpeace tells only a partial truth. Since combustion of virtually any compound produces dioxins, singling out chlorinated com­ pounds is disingenuous. And indeed, the amount of dioxin produced by incinerating chlorine-contain­ ing products is vanishingly small. A properly operating incinerator will have dioxin emissions below detection levels. The dioxin emitted by the 22 million woodbuming fireplaces in homes in the U.S. dwarfs the amount released by the incineration of chlorinecontaining products. And the dioxin produced “naturally” by forest fires exceeds by thousands of times the amount produced by waste incinerators each year. H ow D e a d l y is Dioxin? Despite assorted claims over the past twenty years, the dioxin known as TCDD is not the “doomsday chemical of the 20th century,” nor is it the “dead­ liest substance ever created by chemists.” Physicians and epidemiologists have been carefully observing the health of people who have been exposed to high levels of TCDD—industrial workers, civilians, Vietnam veterans—and have been unable to attribute unequivocally any human cancers or deaths to TCDD exposure. The only documented adverse health effect of exposure to dioxin is the skin disease chloracne. Although it is often persistent and disfiguring, chloracne is not life-threatening and is often reversible when exposure ceases. Studies following certain groups of Vietnam veterans who were exposed to high levels of dioxin, a contaminant of the defoliant Agent Orange, show no R a te s o f in fe r tility association between dioxin tissue levels and cancer or other health effects. A have remained con­ two-part, twenty-year mortality and health-effects evaluation of 995 Air stant over the past Force Ranch Hands, the personnel who three decades. handled and sprayed Agent Orange, found no chloracne, no increase in nine immune-system tests and no increase in either melanoma or sys­ temic cancer (cancers of the lung, colon, testicle, bladder, kidney, prostate; Hodgkin’s disease; soft tissue sarcoma or non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma). The authors of this 1990 study concluded that “there is insufficient scientific CHLORINE, CONTINUED ON PAGE 2 6 E a r t h D a y ’9 6 25 CHLORINE, CONTINUED decline was associated with estrogenic compounds, the authors later admitted that the apparent decrease in sperm counts was due to com­ putational error and was not supported by a reanalysis of the data. evidence to implicate a causal relationship between herbicide exposure A ten-year study of the semen quality of Wisconsin men showed and adverse health in the Ranch Hand Group.” no change over time in sperm concentration or motility. (It must be Studies of more than 800 dioxin-exposed workers in nine indus­ , noted, however, that virtually all studies of trial-plant accidents in the United States, England, Germany, sperm health suffer from methodological France, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands fail to indicate seri­ '[le problems, including how subjects are ous long-term health effects in these men, some of whom have 1 2A m erican selected and the number of samples dioxin concentrations in their bodies exceeding 1,000 ppt Council on Science and Health, taken.) (parts per trillion) thirty years after their initial exposure. While sperm concentration founded in 1978, is a nonprofit public Some 465 cases of chloracne were observed in these education organization directed and advised and motility are not the only workers. by over 250 prominent scientists, physicians determinants of male fertili­ A study of 2,200 Dow Chemical workers who were and policy experts. ACSH’s goal is to provide ty, the 1965 Princeton potentially exposed to dioxin revealed that they had a consumers with up-to-date, scientifically sound National Fertility Study and slightly lower mortality than a control group and that information on the relationship between human the large, broad-based sur­ they have had no total cancer increase. A study of 370 health and chemicals, foods, nutrition, lifestyle veys conducted by the wives of dioxin-exposed men showed no excess miscar­ and the environment. Annual membership, National Center for Health riages and no excess fetal deaths or birth defects in their including a subscription to Priorities, ACSH’s Statistics in 1976, 1982 and children. quarterly magazine, is just $25. Contact 1988 indicate that rates of Life-threatening health effects in humans, in short, ACSH, 1995 Broadway, 2nd Floor, infertility have remained con­ have not been stant over the past three decades New York, NY 0023-5860, linked definitively to at 8 to 11 percent, with male infer­ phone 212/362-7044dioxin, despite our fears tility accounting for approximately to the contrary. Over 40,000 one third of the cases. scientific papers have provided Furthermore, reproductive problems enormous information about have not been detected in the groups of people who were most heav­ this greatly misunderstood ily exposed to dioxin: Vietnam Air Force Ranch Hands, occupationchemical, and the scientific ally exposed workers and the populations of Times Beach, Missouri, and medical communities will and Seveso, Italy. continue to monitor the health of those people who have been C onclusion exposed to large amounts of Chlorine is an inextri­ Reports linking dioxins. The evidence now in cable part of our lives and hand does not support claims is necessary for the mainte­ decreased human that dioxin is a major health nance of the present high threat. standards in our food, sperm counts w ater and h o u sin g . Estrogenic worldivide to chlo­ Chlorine contributes in the fields of medicine, Effects rinated chemical transportation and com­ ON FERTILITY munications. Greenpeace alleges that exposure are based Chlorine is a building dioxin and other organochloblock for nearly all chemi­ rines may do more than cause on questionable cal processes. It plays a cancer. It alleges that dioxin vital role in the health of and other chlorinated chemi­ data and grand the population and in cals mimic estrogen, adversely maintaining a clean and exaggeration. affecting the immune system and possibly causing birth defects. safe environment. From Although dioxin causes birth defects in laboratory animals, none chlorine-containing phar­ of the many studies undertaken shows that dioxin causes birth defects maceuticals to fire-resistant in humans. The women most heavily exposed to dioxin during an and recyclable PVC construction materials, and from water purifica­ accident in Seveso, Italy, showed no increased incidence of birth tion to the raising of safe, insect-free food crops, chlorine makes a cru­ abnormalities in their newborn children. Moreover, the examination cial contribution to the health and well-being of our society. of medically aborted fetus­ If chlorine and its chemical derivatives are banned, the expense es during the period fol­ to the American people in finding replacements will cost billions of lowing the Seveso accident dollars and result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. The loss failed to indicate birth If chlorine and its of useful products—plastics, pharmaceuticals, even safe drinkiqg defects. (Tragically, many water—will be a needless tragedy. We will have taken a giant step women in Seveso needless­ chemical deriva­ backward in our standard of living. ly elected to have abor­ The scientific community in industry, academia and government tions out of fear that their tives are banned, must continue to ensure that the future use of chlorine, PVC and children would be bom other chlorinated chemicals is based on sound science, thoughtful risk with defects.) we will have taken assessment and cost/benefit analysis, along with full consideration of Various reports link­ health and environmental factors. ing decreased human a giant step back­ sperm counts worldwide to ward in our stan­ c h lo rin a te d chem ical exposure are based on ® ® © dard of living. questionable data and grand exaggeration. Much Qordon W. Qribble, Pb.D., is a professor of chemistry at Dartmouth of the furor over sperm College. This essay is excerpted with permission from Chlorine and counts came from a 1992 Health, published in August 1995 by the American Council on Science report in a British medical journal citing a 50 percent decline in sperm and Health (ACSH). Copies of the complete report are available from counts from 1938 to 1990 among men from industrialized countries. ACSH for $3.85. After promoting, in a 1993 Lancet article, the hypothesis that this FROM 26 Ea r t h Da y ’9 6 PAGE 25 Smoke and M ir r o r s H ow the EPA Misled America on the Dangers o f Second-Hand Tobacco Smoke , By Qary L. Huber Robert E. Brockie, and Vijay K. Mahajan smoke. Those numbers may seem high, but com­ ecently, the Environmental Protection pared to other environmental sources they are not. Agency (EPA) completed a report conclud­ Space heaters and gas ranges, for instance, ing that exposure to environmental tobacco release about 20,000 to 40,000 micrograms of smoke (ETS)—the residual material from burning formaldehyde per hour into our environment. In cigarettes that is released into indoor air environ­ most buildings, background levels of formaldehyde ments by the process of active smoking—presents a are in the range of 40 to 50 micrograms per serious and substantial public health prob­ cubic meter (pg/rrr^. The best of the lem. For adult nonsmokers, the EPA published data indicate that concluded that “ETS is a human formaldehyde concentrations in lung carcinogen, responsible for E n J_>n v i r o n ETS are similar to background approximately 3,000 lung mental Education Enterprises levels and generally, with cancer deaths annually in conducts educational programs unusual exceptions, do not U.S. nonsmokers.” nationwide for professionals in the exceed 40pg/m^. The estab­ As a nation, we environmental field. EEE’s president, lished “safe” level for envi­ depend on the EPA to Jay Lehr, is one of the country’s leading ronmental exposure to undertake risk assessments hydrologists and an outspoken propo­ formaldehyde is 1,500 og/m^, on many agents in our nent of sound science. Corttact or several fold the level attrib­ environment that might be EEE at 2764 Sawbury Boulevard, utable to ETS. potentially harmful to us. Columbus, O hio 43235, Benzene and toluene are also list­ W hen the EPA “speaks,” we phone 614/792-0005. ed by the EPA as residual ETS con­ generally presume that its conclu­ stituents that are potential carcino­ sions are based on solid scientific gens. Benzene is ubiquitous in our environ­ evidence and are derived by standard sci­ ment, and toluene is chemically related to benzene. entific practices. Gasoline is a primary source of benzene, toluene, Our presumption would be overgenerous in the case of the ETS report, unfortunately. In this and other related volatile organic compounds case, the EPA’s risk assessment is built on the (VOCs) in our air, as is outgassing from building manipulation of data, ignores critical chemical materials, office activities and office machines, analyses and key epidemiological data, and violates photocopying, various combustion sources, glue time-honored statistical principles. solvents, paint solvents, and the like. The established acceptable levels of expo­ sure for benzene are 30,000pg/m^ Ex p o s u r e Levels an d fo r t o l u e n e are An inviolable rule of environmental toxicol­ 375,000(ig/m^, values ogy is that “the dose makes the poison.” A t some well above (over a dose, every chemical is a potential poison. Some thousandfold) any that of our environmental chemicals are toxic to might ever be expect­ humans and about two dozen or so of them are ed from ETS. designated as human carcinogens. But potential Benzo[a]pyrene toxicity and carcinogenicity can be offset, for (BaP) is another aromatic practical purposes, by limiting our exposure to hydrocarbon that has a high level of carcinogenic­ acceptably low levels. ity for animals and is a suspected human carcino­ The report lists six constituents of environ­ gen. Background indoor envi­ mental air that are known to ronmental concentrations of be residual environmental BaP generally range in the constituents of tobacco T he risk neighborhood of 0.1 to 1 smoke, including formalde­ nanograms per cubic meter hyde, toluene, benzene, car­ assessment is built (ng/rn^ without smokers pre­ bon monoxide, benzo[a]sent, and in the range of 0.3 pyrene, and total polycyclic the manipula­ to 1.5 ng/m^ with them. a ro m a tic h y d ro c a rb o n s. Standardized safe exposure lev­ Limited attention is also tion of dataf els for BaP have not been given to two additional chem­ established. ical constituents generally ignores critical Our primary exposure to BaP unique to tobacco: nicotine chemical analyses and other polycyclic aromatic (and its metabolic breakdown hydrocarbons (PAHs) comes not product, cotinine) and the and violates timefrom our environmental air, group of compounds known however, but from the food we as tobacco-specific N-nitrohonored statistical eat and from the water we drink. samines. Our dietary intake of BaP, for Formaldehyde is designat­ principles. instance, is probably about 1,000 ed as a potential carcinogen. to 5,000 ng/day, without any Currently popular commercial charcoal-broiled meat. cigarettes deliver about 20 to Drinking water contains 1 to 10 ng/L of PAHs 90 micrograms of formaldehyde in mainstream and surface waters contain several hundred smoke and up to 700 micrograms in sidestream R EPA’s on , nanograms per liter. One piece of charcoal-broiled meat delivers about 2,000 to 3,000 ng of PAH. Surprisingly, however, probably the sources with the highest PAH levels in our diet are the leafy vegetables (e.g. lettuce, spinach) and unrefined grains, which are contaminated by outdoor deposi­ tion from the air. Nicotine is more or less unique to tobacco, although very small amounts can be found in certain foodstuffs, such as tomatoes. Nicotine, however, has never been seri­ ously considered a carcinogen. Som e nitrosamines are also unique to tobacco. Nitrosamines are a suspected human car­ cinogen, based on animal stud­ ies, but their specific role in human carcinogenesis has remained contro­ versial. Exposure to ETS resid­ ual constituents may, under som e circ u m sta n c es, result in the intake of 0.1 micrograms or less of nitro-samiries per day by nonsmokers, a relatively minuscule amount compared to the 10 to 100 micrograms of nitrosamines ingested from food in the average diet each day. Like the 50 to 100 other chemical compounds that are reported to have been measured in ETS, the constituents of ETS that are cited by the EPA are present only at infinitesimally low concentra­ tions in our environment. If any of those con­ stituents are, in fact, carcinogenic to humans at such very low levels, and if they are indeed present in our environment from ETS in concentrations that represent a true health hazard, those who are not smokers deserve to know that. But the EPA has not conducted a proper, credible risk assessment undertaken based on facts and reality, but rather an exercise in speculation based on tiers of assump­ tions and extrapolations. E pidem iologic Data Two of the three cornerstones for determining a causal relationship— (1) establishing a specific substance that causes a specific disease and (2) establishing a dose relationship for the develop­ ment of that disease—cannot be established on the basis of ETS data now available. The third remain­ ing approach is to evaluate the potential health risks for nonsmokers in epidemiological studies. Epidemiology studies employ statistical analy­ ses to determine the rate and distribution of a dis­ ease (or diseases) within given human populations and, when possible, the factors that are associated SMOKE, CONTINUED ON EA R TH DAY ’9 6 PAGE 28 27 are not saying that exposure to ETS is without haz­ effect that sometimes reaches statistical signifi­ ard. The data that have been presented in the lit­ cance and sometimes does not, it may prove of erature, though, simply do not support any defini­ value to combine all of the data from all of the tive conclusions. with the development of the diseases. studies into one comprehensive analysis. That Epidemiology studies are most effective when they pooling of data is called a “meta-analysis.” We believe that reasonable scientists could can assess a specifically defined risk factor. Because interpret the published literature on ETS with dif­ The EPA pooled the adjusted results of 11 stud­ exposure to residual con­ fering opinions. Nor are we suggesting that ETS ies into such a meta-analysis. stituents of tobacco smoke in should not be taken seriously. There are almost 50 The resultant relative risk ratio our e n v iro n m e n t ca n n o t for all of these studies’ combined million active smokers in the United States, and be quantified, epidemiologists values was a very weak 1.19, the better part of a billion smokers worldwide. A ll 13 studies have again had to use indirect Because of the large number of nonsmokers who with a 90 percent confidence measurements, or proxies, of are in contact with active smokers, concerns about interval of 1.04 to 1.35. On the failed to demon­ ETS exposure. basis of this meta-analysis, the any potential health risks associated with exposure In its epidemiological risk EPA concluded that there was a to ETS are very important. strate a statisti­ assessments, the EPA employed It is an issue that deserves resolution by the 19 percent increased chance of previously published studies cally significant highest quality of data that science has to offer, not developing lung cancer if you that evaluated the develop­ by compromising well-established scientific princi­ were a nonsmoker married to a relationship ment, or lack of development, ples or by distorting scientific fact. smoking spouse. of lung cancer as a function of Combining data and under­ between spousal spousal smoking habits. These taking a meta-analysis are valid SAFEGUARDING THE FUTURE studies were based on a con­ procedures under appropriate The EPA, apparently at its own request, smoking and cept of “relative risk,” usually circumstances. But in order to recently underwent an outside review to identify expressed as an odds ratio. make the outcome of their how it could better use sound science as a foun­ lung cancer in If the disease rates in the meta-analysis “valid” and “statis­ dation for its policy decisions. That review, pub­ two populations studied were tically significant,” the EPA first nonsmokers lished as “Safeguarding the Future: Credible exactly the same, the odds had to adjust the data as Science, Credible Decisions,” was critical of the ratio, or relative risk, would be originally EPA, and included a set of 1.0. If more cancers occurred published in guidelines to improve the in one group than in another, the relative risk peer-reviewed literature and, quality of science in its risk would be greater than 1.0. second, they had to broaden the assessments. The constituents A relative risk is characterized as strong or confidence intervals from the With its document on pas­ weak depending on its magnitude, or degree of usual 95 percent level to a sci­ sive smoking, the EPA disre­ of E T S that are association. A strong relative risk has an odds ratio entifically unconventional level garded the suggestions of its of 5.0 to 10.0 or greater. By conventional defini­ of 90 percent. own review. Scientific integrity cited by the EPA tion, weak relative risks are ones where the odds When a number of studies was compromised, if not out­ ratio is in the range of 1.0 to 3.0 or so. are combined, the confidence right abused, by the manner in are present only The EPA based its risk assessment for lung intervals generally are “ratch­ which this risk assessment was at infinitesimally cancer on only 11 of the 13 available studies from eted down,” or tightened, to generated. the United States. The decision to exclude the two assess significance; the EPA did Abusing scientific integrity low concentra­ most recent U.S. studies was made simply because just the opposite and in so and generating faulty’ “scientific” they were published after an arbitrary cut-off date doing diminished its report’s outcomes through manipulations, tions in our earlier in 1992. Interestingly, one of the excluded scientific value. Lowering statis­ assumptions, and extrapolations studies, by Stockwell et al. from the National tical standards to . make valid leads to the development of mis­ environment. Cancer Institute, stated that for lung cancer “we otherwise unmeaningful results taken programs at enormous cost found no statistically significant increase in risk is an unusual and dubious scien­ to our government and to taxpay­ associated with exposure to environmental tobacco tific practice. ers. Indeed, the cost to the scien­ smoke at work or during social activities." In the past, the EPA has tific process itself is even greater. The EPA “adjusted” the originally published employed 95 percent confidence levels as a mea­ Science should dictate what policies need to data, in theory correcting for sure of scientific validity. Had be established; predetermined policies should not potential misclassification of the EPA done so in this case, or dictate how science .should be interpreted. We have had it not adjusted the original smokers as nonsmokers and many problems in the environment, some of which other factors. For their calcula­ data, or had it included all avail­ are of far greater biological impact than our poten­ W ithout the tions, the EPA also selected able published data, its analysis tial exposure to the residual constituents of ETS. “subsets” of data from the ini­ would not have had the same recalculations The EPA is charged with addressing those problems outcome. tially reported total data pub­ critically, objectively, and honestly. Compromising and manipula­ lished. The manipulation of data in the credibility of the EPA by adjusting science this manner to develop statisti­ Using the original results leaves us with an important resource substantially tions, the EPA cal significance permitted the reported for the 13 studies from diminished. the United States, all 13 studies EPA to declare passive smoking We need and we deserve better. Will reality and would not have failed to demonstrate a statisti­ a Group A carcinogen, the high­ fact ever catch up with political science at the EPA? cally significant relationship est rank possible. Without the m et any of the between spousal smoking and recalculations and manipula­ tions, the EPA would not have lung cancer in nonsmokers. Q ® © three classic cri­ Using the EPA-adjusted data, 10 met any of the three classic cri­ teria for estab­ of the 11 studies employed in teria for establishing risk. Qary L. Huber is a professor of medicine at University A relative risk of 1.19, even the EPA analysis are unable to lishing risk of Texas Health Center in Tyler, Texas. Robert E. if the data were not manipulat­ show a statistically significant Brockie is at the Presbyterian and Doctors Hospital in ed, is extremely weak. It is of the risk. Three of the studies have Dallas, Texas. Vijay K. Mahajan is a professor of med­ same general magnitude as the an odds ratio of less than 1.0, icine at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Toledo, Ohio. potentially suggesting less lung risk that an American citizen Excerpted with permission from Regulation: The Cato cancer occurs in nonsmokers married to smokers than faces of dying in a bicycling accident over the Review of Business & Government (1993 #3). occurs in nonsmokers married to nonsmokers. course of a lifetime. Annual subscriptions cost $18. Contact the Cato In stitute, 1000 M assachusetts Avenue N W , No D efin itiv e C o n c lu s io n L e t ’s T r y M e t a - A n a l y s i s Washington, DC 20001. In critically questioning the EPA’s study, we When a series of epidemiologic data suggest an SMOKE, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27 . . 28 E a r t h D a y ’9 6 HOW F r e e m a r k e t s PROTECT T h e E n v i r o n m e n t By Richard Stroup, P h.D ., and Jane Shaw onventional economic wisdom, in a theory first propounded by Nobel lau­ reate Paul Samuelson, holds that the unregulated market cannot be expect­ ed to protect the environment. In this theory, clean air and water are “pub­ lic goods” whose value is not well reflected by market processes. Potential polluters do not consider the social costs of their action, but only the costs to themselves. In addition, since efforts to maintain a clean environment benefit even those who do not help fund them, each individual faces a strong temptation to avoid footing the bill. This analysis has become so accepted that many people now see no alterna­ tive to the system of government environmental regulation and control that has been pieced together over the past two decades. This system, however, is beset with difficulties. When environmental goals and controls are politically determined, they are subject to a process that is often driven by groundless accusations, supported by public fear, and legislated with spe­ cial interest in mind. Populist sentiment and pork-barrel politics, rather than actu­ al environmental dangers, currently determine priorities. We should therefore be prepared to reconsider the free-market solution to environmental pollution, which has worked in the past and could be made to work better now. Over the long run, private ownership is the most effective protector of the environment—provided ownership is transferable and backed by courts that make people liable when their pollutants invade the person or property of others. This system of private ownership would protect the environment for the same rea­ son that it protects other kind of property: because it encourages good stewardship. C P roperty R ights and Ac co u n t a b il it y When backed by effective liability laws, private property rights tend to work well. Because well-tended property increases its value, private owners generally take care not to despoil their land. This safeguard works even when owners care only for themselves, not for their heirs. For at the very first signs of poor stewardship—the first indications of land erosion, for instance—appraisers and potential buyers can project the results into the future, and the value of the property declines immediately. With an effective liability system, these pressures can also keep corporations from despoiling land or property that they do not own. Although disputes occur, the obligations of those who harm others’ property Populist sentim ent are so widely accepted that many people do not even have to go to and pork-barrel court when their cars are damaged: insurance companies generally politics, rather than handle such cases routinely. Unfortunately, environmental actual environmental damage is often not as recognizable dangers, currently as a dented fender. Common law requires plaintiffs to prove damages determine priorities and identify the responsible parties, and though the standard of proof is not as high as in criminal cases, it remains substantial. In order to sue you successfully for polluting my lungs, I must show that I suf­ fered the damage for which I am demanding compensation. And I must prove that the cause of the damage was your air pollution. Without reliable information, owners cannot adequately defend their property rights in court. Air Over the long run, could have been contaminated by many different sources, for example, private ownership or the health effects could be hard to measure. Thus the nature of emis­ is the most effective sions can make liability laws unen­ forceable, particularly in the case of protector of the air pollution. T ie difficulty of obtaining satis­ environment faction in court was, in fact, an . important factor creating pressure for government intervention to control pollution. But government intervention does not eliminate the need for accurate information. PROBLEMS WITH Government control Like private individuals, the government has trouble knowing the source and effect of pol­ lutants. Unfortunately, it has therefore tended to adopt standards that do not demand solid evi­ dence connecting emissions with harm. Under today’s regime, the mere suspicion of harm, com­ bined with educated guesses as to the source of pollution, are driving policies that have enor­ mous costs. Los Angeles, for example, is about to impose measures to require reformulation of prod­ ucts such as deodorants and paints and conver­ sion of cars so that they run on methanol rather than gasoline. Not only does the government lack the nec­ essary information for controlling pollution, but politicians often have little incentive to obtain the information. Politicians find it easier and more popular with most constituencies simply to adopt a stance of outrage against polluters. In fact, generating outrage is an effective way to generate votes. The passage of Superfund boosted the careers of a number of congressmen, even though it resulted from misinformation about Love Canal and the incorrect implication that every town had a potential disaster in its backyard. The political pressures that dominate gov­ ernment also work against taking the long view. Government officials are legally barred from per­ sonally capturing any value that they help create; correspondingly, they pay no financial penalty for property that deteriorates. By contrast, a private owner of land will see its value change immediately after a major invest­ ment, because the value reflects future benefits and costs stemming from his action. Since no such “capitalized value” exists in the government setting, government officials are more interested in maximizing political power than economic value. EXAMPLES OF GOVERNMENT MISMANAGEMENT It is true that government officials are usually well-intentioned. But pursuing their professional mission almost inevitably means disregarding some goals impor­ tant to the public interest and catering instead to specific individuals and groups. For example, Forest Service foresters tend to be highly committed to har­ vesting and replanting trees, often neglecting the potential value of the national forests for recreation. This commitment has led the Forest Service to log extensively areas such as the Rocky Mountains, where the timber value of the trees is low and where the environmental harm from extensive cutting can be severe. A perverse result is that the harvested trees command prices lower than the cost to the taxpayer of cutting them down. Politics also affects our national parks. The National Park Service generally follows the views of the leaders of prestigious environmental groups, even though the policies that this small minority espouses are not necessarily those that most Americans want. . FREE MARKET, CONTINUED ON EA RTH DAY ’9 6 PAGE 30 29 FREE MARKET, CONTINUED FROM PAGE PRIVATE PROTECTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT 29 When it comes to maintaining environmental quality, protecting natural beau­ ty, and preserving wildlife habitat, private organizations have often done a better The decision to allow fires to bum in spite of decades’ worth of fuel buildup job than government. One reason for their effectiveness is that their actions do led to the devastation of much of Yellowstone in the summer of 1988. While envi­ not have to reflect majoritarian views, which often change. ronmental leaders endorse these policies because they minimize human interven­ Private conservation began long before the American public developed today’s tion, the disappearance of wildlife such as the beaver and the grizzly bear disturbs environmental consciousness or enlisted the government to protect endangered many people. One reason the harm is so severe is that it follows decades of the species-and enforce cleanups. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association in eastern opposite extreme—extreme intervention, during which Pennsylvania, for example, was formed privately in 1934, at a time when hawks park rangers killed off Yellowstone’s wolves and sup­ were considered vermin because they ate chickens. pressed all fires. Sea Lion Caves, a tourist attraction on the coast of Oregon, began pro­ i ERC is Other examples of destructive or at least tecting sea lions in the 1920s, when the state of Oregon had a $5 bounty an environm ental research questionable government actions abound. on each sea lion. At that time, the animals were viewed as pests because center in Bozeman, Montana, that For many years, the Bureau of Reclamation they ate fish and harmed the salmon industry; Sea Lion Caves provided specializes in market-based solutions built costly dams that flooded thousands of a haven until public opinion changed and laws were passed to protect to environmental problems. Its scholars acres of habitat. Today, feral horses and sea lions. have pioneered the development of Free burros are harming federally owned rangeEven today, when the government is supposed to control the envi­ Market Environmentalism, and write lands, but they cannot be controlled ronment, private groups are responsible for much of the effective protec­ and speak on a wide range of environ­ because of opposition from animal-rights tion of wildlife. mental issues. Contact PERC at 502 groups. And until recently, the Bureau of The Nature Conservancy has more than a thousand nature sanctuaries, S. 19th Avenue #211, Bozeman, Land Management, which oversees rangeand since its founding in 1951 it has preserved some 2.4 million acres. The Montana 59715, phone land, was routinely using crawler tractors to National Audubon Society has more than sixty preserves, covering more than 406/587-9591. pull up bushes and small trees in large stretches 250,000 acres. Ducks Unlimited protects more than a million acres of wildlands of grazing land, despite a low cost-benefit ratio on each year through easements that preserve waterfowl habitats. much of the land. Operation Stronghold is a national association of private landowners com­ mitted to managing their land in a way that protects or enhances wildlife habitat. There are hundreds of other such sites in the U.S., providing refuge and habitat Im p r o v i n g t h e C o m m o n l a w for all sorts of flora and fauna. The common law, of course, has its flaws, too. Nevertheless, its rules of evi­ The beauty of such private efforts is that people who do not care for ducks dence and its history of even-handed protection of individual rights make it in or egrets need not pay for their most cases the best vehicle for holding accountable those who damage the enviupkeep, as taxpayers do when the ronment. government is in control. Also, We should begin by recognizing that many of the common law’s failings were since private organizations do not introduced by the legal activists who have been working to change the system T he government use funds coerced from other peo­ since the 1950s. According to a number of analysts, courts today tend to com­ ple, but rather rely primarily on pensate victims from whatever “deep pocket” might be found, even if the deep record in controlling donations, they tend to target their pocket acted responsibly. This approach destroys the link between liability and efforts efficiently. pollution and responsibility, and thereby reduces the incentive to take costly steps to avoid dam­ aging others. One remedial step would be to restore the sanctity of contract, and to let insurers help control the risks from unintended pollution. Insurance companies have enforced safety in many industries while at the same time making safety costeffective. In addition, governments could rely less heavily on direct regulation and instead require environmentally risky ventures, such as hazardous-waste dumps, to be bonded or insured. Both bonds and insurance can provide the accountability that is otherwise absent when insolvency or bankruptcy prevents compa­ nies from compensating vic­ tims. A firm that has posted a large bond to guarantee solvency in case of liability claims will have a much stronger incentive to handle its hazardous materials safely and efficiently. Increased emphasis on accountabili­ ty through the common law could lead to other salutary developments. For example, chemicals that might escape into the water or air might be “branded” by dyes or radioactive isotopes to help identify their source. Responsible companies could protect themselves with brand­ ing, because they would be in the clear if contam­ inants that caused damage did not carry their brands. In addition, faced with laws that assure the solvency of potential polluters and that make liabili­ ty more certain for anyone whose contaminants invade the property of others, insurers and others responsible for potential damages would provide a bull market for the devel­ opment of better forensic technology, as well as better contain­ ment and decontamination procedures. W hen general accountabili­ ty—-rather than specific behavior— is stressed, the incentive to avoid damage is greater. 30 E a r t h D a y ’9 6 CONCLUSION preserving habitats As our standard of living has is not impressive improved, our desire for environ­ mental amenities has increased. We can expect this demand for natural beauty to continue to grow as our national income increases, for attention to the environment is correlated with higher income. We can further expect the private sector—both profit and nonprofit—to con­ tinue to take the lead in meeting the increasing environmental demands whenev­ er it is allowed to do so. That does not mean that private organizations will solve all environmental problems. Where property rights are nonexistent, ill-defined, or unenforceable, there will be no owner to insist on protection. Rather than abandoning private management in favor of direct govern­ mental control, however, we should try to find ways to establish accountabil­ ity (along with the freedom and incentive to innovate) by estab­ lishing or strengthening property rights. We need to compare the prob­ lems stemming from imperfect property rights with the “solutions” put into effect by imperfect government. The evidence sug­ gests that the political process has all too frequent­ ly caused the greater degree of waste and destruction. . © Richard L. Stroup is professor of economics, Montana State University, and senior asso­ ciate, PERC. Jane S. Shaw is a senior associate at PERC. This essay is excerpted from Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns, Jay H. Lehr, editor (New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992). Rules for E c o -S a n it y Thirty-six facts and rules for critical thinking that will boost the environmental movement’s effectiveness. By Joseph Bast, Peter J. Hill and Richard C . Rue he biggest barrier to further improvements in environmen­ tal quality is not a lack of money. Spending on environ­ mental protection in the U.S. is greater, both in dollar terms and as a percentage of gross national product, than it ever has been, and also considerably higher than spending in other countries. Is the biggest problem that the wrong people are in the White House, the Forest Service, or the EPA? No. Government’s man­ agement of the National Forests and enforcement of pollution standards have been relatively unaffected by which political party happens to hold office. (Contrary to the claims of both major par­ ties.) Environmentally destructive subsidies to agriculture, for example, have taken place under the administrations of Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. As Randal O ’Toole and others have pointed out, the people who serve in the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies are honest, talented, and committed. W hat, then, is the biggest barrier to improving environmen­ tal protection? We believe it is the environmental movement itself. More specifically, we believe the lack of understanding and criti­ cal thinking on the part of most environmentalists has compro­ mised the movement’s ability to be an effective force for environ­ mental protection. The popular wisdom on issue after issue bears little resem­ blance to what objective scientists have to say. This “disconnect” means many environmentalists are wasting their energy—and the dollars of consumers, businesses, and taxpayers—fighting nonexis­ tent problems or problems that already are being solved, while bigger prob­ lems go unnoticed. There are no Environmentalists need to “invisible killers ” improve their critical think­ ing skills so they can see in the airf water, through the deception and exaggeration that has char­ or food that are acterized the promotions of some environmental organi­ causing cancer. zations and the popular media’s coverage of environ­ mental issues. In this essay we summarize facts, rules, and principles envi­ ronmentalists can use to recognize real environmental threats and see past scare tactics. Equipped with these “rules for eco-sanity,” the reader should be able to separate myth from reality, rhetoric from science, and unproven theories from real risks. He or she also should be able to evaluate proposed solutions to see how close they come to addressing the real sources of environmental prob­ lems, and how likely they are to be effective. T Fa cts to remember 1. The environment is cleaner than at any time in the past halfcentury. The average American in 1994 is exposed to fewer poten­ tially harmful pollutants than at any time since the 1930s. Air and water pollution, which had risen during the 1940s and 1950s, have fallen consistently and considerably since that time. Today, pollution of all kinds is responsible for less than 1 percent of cancer deaths. 2. The environment is safer than at any time in recorded history. The probability that a substance or natural process will cause human injury is the lowest it has ever been. The threat of naturally occurring poisons and pathogens in our water and food is the lowest it has been in recorded his­ tory. Similarly, our risk of accidental exposure to hazardous substances while at work or from waste sites in our communities has never been lower. There is no longer any reason to be afraid of the environment. 3. Life expectancy has never been longer. The average life expectan­ cy of Americans has steadily increased since the time such records were first kept. Most medical experts believe this trend will continue. These are important facts because they contradict claims that man­ made chemicals and pollution are making the world a less healthy place to live. Longer lifespans mean that, as a people, we are becom­ ing healthier over time, not more sickly. This would not be true if we were “poisoning the environment.” 4. Cancer rates are falling, not rising. We’ve lived with pesticides, automobiles, and electromagnetic fields for nearly a century. During this period, overall cancer rates among the nonelderly population went down, not up. Cancer rates among the elderly appear to have increased, but this is due partly to better diagnosis and partly to the rapid decline of other causes of death. There are no “invisible killers” in the air, water, or food that are causing cancer. There is certainly no “cancer epidemic.” 5. Predictions of impending global ecological disasters are untrue. There is no scientific validity to claims that acid rain, global warming, deforestation, or ozone depletion will cause global environmental disasters at any time in the future. A small amount of global warming may occur in the future, but it poses no harm to (and may actually benefit) life on the planet. There is no evidence that ozone depletion caused by man­ made CFCs is resulting in higher levels of UV radiation on the Earth’s surface, nor would the degree of increase that some predict have adverse effects on human, animal, or plant life. 6. Most environmental problems have been or are being solved. Automobile emissions, for example, have been reduced by 90 to 97 per­ cent during the past twenty years. The threats of deforestation and resource depletion have been elimi­ nated from the developed countries of the world, and remain problems only in Third World countries tom by civil war and acute poverty. Oil spills are less common and cause less ecological harm than in the past. Landfill tech­ nology has advanced “dramatically” in the past decade. Spending on Environmental Protection in the U.S. Is Rising 7. Ideas are more important than things. Human knowledge, says The Heartland Institute economist Julian Simon, is “the ulti­ mate resource” because it is able to find uses for things that are apparently useless. Innovation and the use of reason to solve problems, not any change in human nature or in the amount of natural respurces, make us wealthier than our grandparents. The “gloofn and doom” school of thought within the environmental movement systematically overlooks the role of ideas RULES, CONTINUED ON Ea r t h PAGE day 32 ’9 6 31 RULES. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31 in finding new resources, managing waste, and protecting human health and the environment. Their zero-sum solutions are unneces­ sary and often don’t work. 8. Prosperity is good for the environment. The fear that prosperity leads to env ronmental destruction saturates the literature of the envi­ ronmental movement. But prosperity has made it possible for us to invest in parks and wildlife preserves, clean our air and water, and treat or store our wastes. The same process that fuels our economic growth—growing efficiency in our use of natural resources—also leads to less waste and pollution. The record here in the U.S., as well as in countries around the world, is perfectly clear on this point: Prosperity is not only compatible with a clean environment, it is environmental protection’s necessary precondition. RULES OF CRITICAL THINKING 1. Correlation is n o t c a u s a tio n . “C o r r e l a t i o n ” means that two things tend to hap­ pen at the same time; “causation” means that one thing is known to cause another thing. Just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean one is causing the other. We need proof, including a reasonable theory showing the path by which one thing causes anoth­ er to occur. Most environmental scares—including global warming, electromagnetic fields, and dioxin—resulted when the correlation of two things was mistaken for causation. To avoid future errors, we need to challenge people who rely on correlations to prove that one thing is actually causing another thing to happen. 2. can be explained. The truth, in 1994, is that the causes of most specific cases of cancer, miscarriage, and child deformity in t h e U . S . a re unexplained. We just don’t know whether a specific case of brain can­ cer, for example, is due to a genetic condition, nutri­ tion, alcohol or drug abuse, a fall in early childhood, or a combination of all of these factors. While we should sympathize with the victims of these afflictions, we should not consider them to be experts on the causes of their illness­ es. A victim’s guess is no more reliable, and may be less reliable, than the guesses of any other nonexpert. Some day, the work of toxicolo­ gists, epidemiologists, and other scientists may produce the answers we seek, but that day has not yet arrived. M O S T CANCER RATES ARE FALLING Cancer Death Rates by Site, Females, U.S., 1930-1990 Ea r t h Day ’9 6 3. Trends can’t predict the future. During the 1970s, global temper­ atures fell several years in a row and “experts” like Dr. Stephen Schneider predicted a new ice age. During the 1980s, temperatures rose several years in a row and the “experts,” including Schneider, pre­ dicted catastrophic global wanning. The cold winter of 1993-94 prompted Time magazine and some scientists to warn again of an approaching ice age. These predictions, There is no such along with predictions of a thing as a product, “population explosion” and eventual resource deple­ decision, or action tion, were wrong because they were based on projec­ that carries no tions of past trends. risk whatsoever. 4. Facts count for more than opinions. The person with the loudest voice or most controversial opinion often gets the most attention. This is cer­ tainly true in the environmental movement, where claims of impending disaster get extensive play. To avoid being misled by “experts” who may represent a minority view within the scientific community, try to obtain the relevant facts and then make up your own mind. On many envi­ ronmental issues, a few numbers tell us more than a thousand pictures. 5. Don’t forget the past. During the 1970s, many prominent envi­ ronmentalists predicted an “energy crisis” and a “population explo­ sion.” Some twenty years later, oil reserves have grown and population growth is slowing. Ronald Bailey, commenting on Paul Ehrlich and Lester Brown, says “One reason such apocalypse abusers thrive is that the public has no long­ term memory. People are unlikely to remem­ ber that a doomster T he lack of under­ made dire predictions twenty years ago that standing and critical have since been proved wrong.” Bailey is right. thinking on the part We need to remember of most environmen­ yesterday’s false alarms and who sounded them talists has compro­ if we are to respond correctly to future calls mised the movement’s to action. ability to be an effec­ 6. We can never avoid risk completely. tive force for environ­ Not everything Everything we do car­ m ental protection. ries with it some risk, even common activi­ ties such as taking a bath (drowning) or crossing the street (being hit by a car). Seemingly harmless things (like balloons and tooth picks) sometimes kill people. There is no such thing as a product, decision, or action that carries no risk whatsoever. Keep in mind that the risks of drowning (16 in a million), or dying in an accident at home (90 in a million), or dying in an automobile acci­ dent (192 in a million) greatly exceed the alleged environmental risks being decried by some organizations. 7. We have to make choices. We can’t buy two items at the grocery store with the same money; we have to choose one or the other. The same is true of how we clean the environment: We have to choose among different ways to do it. We can’t do everything, all at once, because trying to do so would be extremely wasteful, unnecessarily injure many people, and probably produce unintended consequences that harm the environment. Instead, we must apply the same prudence that we apply to other important parts of our lives. The importance of environmental issues doesn’t somehow exempt them from this disci­ pline. In fact, their importance makes careful planning and efficiency all the more necessary. RULES, CONTINUED ON PAGE 3 3 RULES, CONTINUED FROM LESSONS PAGE 32 FROM SCIENCE 1. It is impossible to prove that something does not exist. Some envi­ ronmental groups insist that unless a substance or action can be “proven to be harmless” to human health or the environment, it should be restricted or banned. This is an impossible standard to meet. As Elizabeth Whelan says, “One cannot prove that a link doesn’t exist, as it is impossible to prove a negative. All that can be said in these cases is that there is no evidence that such a link is based on fact.” This is why good scientists never say “there is no risk of harm” or “this chem­ ical does not cause cancer.” It is impossible for scientific research to prove, beyond doubt, the truth of such universal statements. 2. The dose makes the poison. Some chemicals can be highly toxic, so it is natural for us to be concerned about their possible effects on human health and the environment. But the real, as opposed to hypo­ thetical, threat posed by a substance depends on our exposure to the substance, or its dose. Many toxic substances, both man-made and nat­ ural, are present in the air, water, and our food, but they are present in such small amounts that only recently have we invented the tools needed to discover their presence. There is little convincing evidence that these substances pose any threat to human health at current lev­ els of exposure. 3. tionship is often not linear. N atural resources Much research regarding the effects of chemicals on are better cared human health is based on for if they are an assumption: If large doses of a chemical have a owned by the peo­ certain effect on laboratory animals, then smaller doses ple who use them will have proportionately smaller effects on humans. Unfortunately, we don’t know for sure whether this is true. If the relationship between dose and effect is not linear, then small doses may have little or no effect on health. When confronted with claims that even a small dose of a chemical may be harmful to human health, we should ask: “Does this study assume a linear relationship between dose and effect ?” If it does, we should be skeptical of its accuracy. ♦ 4- Mice are not little men. Experiments on laboratory animals are valuable ways of measuring a chemical’s toxicity or its likely effects on wildlife. But such experiments fail to accurately assess human cancer risks. The enormous doses fed to laboratory animals cause tissue dam­ age and stress, which can lead to tumors even if the substance being tested is not carcinogenic at normal doses. Animal tests also assume that mice and humans respond the same way to chemicals, even though mice sometimes respond to chemicals very differently than rats and guinea pigs. 5. Epidemiologic studies can be unreliable. Like laboratory experi­ ments, epidemiologic studies can be valuable guides to discovering harmful substances, but they too are frequently misused in the debate over how to protect human health and the environment. If a report claims to have found an association between a food or chemical and human health, ask the following questions: How many subjects were in the study, and how were they selected? Did the survey rely on the memories of victims and their relatives, or on more objective pub­ lished data? How carefully chosen and monitored was the “control group” that was not exposed to the food or chemical? And what was the range of the study’s possible conclusions (its “margin of error”)? Are the lower estimates near zero or even negative? A sound epi­ demiologic study can survive scrutiny of this sort and give us reliable information. Many of the studies we hear and read about, however, fall short. 6. Risks can be measured and ranked. Researchers can measure and compare the risks associated with different courses of action. Assuming their estimates are based on sound assumptions (not sim- plistic extrapolations from laboratory animal tests, for example), we can use them to rank environmental problems according to how much risk they pose to the envi­ ronment or our health. This, in turn, helps us prioritize problems Prosperity Is G o o d for The Environment and decide where our limited THE THEORY resources would be best spent. Quantity Index 7. Science is not immune to politics. Most scientific research taking place in American univer­ sities is subsidized by the govern­ ment, which means it is influ­ enced by politics. Some scientists have political beliefs or loyalties that influence their views, espe­ cially on subjects outside - their area of technical training. To know when science is being politicized, we should ask the fol­ lowing questions: *5) Is a report being issued by an Point at which Points at which cleaner and more independent scientist or by a gov­ incentives to efficient technologies were adopted protect the in response to these incentives, ernment agency? The first is less environment likely to be politicized than the were intro­ second. duced. The dose-response rela­ © Is a scientist addressing an issue outside his or her discipline? For example, Dr. Helen Caldicott, head of the Union of Concerned Scientists, is a pediatrician, not a nuclear scientist; Dr. Paul Ehrlich is not a demographer; and Ralph Nader is not a scientist. When they comment on issues outside their areas of specialty, look for facts and independent research that support their opinions. <5) Has the study been reviewed by the author’s peers? Unless a report is published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, it has not been scrutinized by members of the scientific community. If a report is called “preliminary” it probably has been rushed to the media without peer review. Prosperity Is G o o d for The Environment Is there experimental evi­ dence that supports the theory, and has the experiment been replicated? Chance will result in experiments that appear to find a correlation between two things even if a real cause-and-effect relationship doesn’t exist. The only way to know for sure that the relationship is real is for other researchers to replicate the exper­ iment and attain the same results. Be wary of the solitary study; by itself, it may prove nothing. THE PRACTICE GDP and emissions in OECD countries Index (1970=100) 200 GDP 150 Nitrogen oxides 100 1 = Sulfur oxides 50 Particulates Lead ^ 0 P rinciples of POLITICAL ECONOMY 1970 1975 1980 1985 1988 OECD 1991; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1991 I. Pollution problems occur where rights are not defined and enforced. When things are privately owned, the civil justice system keeps us from invading or damaging them. But when they are owned in common—like air, rivers and lakes, wildlife, and in some cases pub­ lic lands—we are often driven by competition with others to exploit them quickly and with little regard for their future value. The result is often pollution, unsustainable rates of development, and endangerment of wildlife. RULES, CONTINUED ON Ea r t h PAGE day 34 ’9 6 RULES, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 33 2. Rights to air, water, and wildlife can be defined and enforced. Historically, property rights held polluters accountable for the damage they caused. The peculiar nature of air, water, and wildlife, however, led to the adoption of statutory laws that pre-empted common law solutions in most situations. Rising prosperity, greater awareness of environmental issues, and technological innovations may be making a return to the property rights strategy possible. Ducks Unlimited, The Nature Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, and similar groups are showing that the property rights solution can work to protect wildlife. 3. Ownership leads to better stewardship. We tend to take better care of things we own than of things we only rent or borrow. Ownership brings together the right to use something and the responsi­ bility for changes in the value of the resource. Natural resources are no different from houses in this regard: If we fail to repair a leak in the roof of a house we own, we suffer a financial loss as the house’s re­ sale value falls. If, on the other hand, we rent the house, then the lost money comes out of the landlord’s pocket, and so we have little incentive to make the necessary repairs. A good landlord sometimes can get his tenants to act with as much responsi­ bility as is shown by some homeowners, but we have seen already that government is generally a poor landlord. Natural resources, therefore, are better cared for if they are owned by the people who use them. 4. Incentives are better than commands. There are two ways to make people do what we want them to do: pass laws compelling them to act a certain way, or give people incentives to act the way we want. The first way requires detailed information about how people must act, a way to monitor their behavior, and an appa­ ratus to punish those who attempt to evade the commands. Creating the right incentives, by contrast, takes advantage of the detailed infor­ mation that already exists in each person’s mind, requires little enforcement or monitoring, and is unlikely to produce evasive actions. A property rights strategy O dd s of Dying from Various Causes works through incentives; govern­ ment intervention relies on com­ mands. Consequently, the proper­ ty rights strategy is likely to pro­ duce better results, and fewer Qrey means real Black means unintended consequences, than risk of death this year hypothetical risk of government intervention. caused by . . . death from cancer caused by . . . 5. environmental problems. What if the person who owns a natural resource doesn't place a high value on it, and therefore fails to manage it well? Transferable property rights enable those who value a resource most highly to bid it away from those who value it less. Potential buyers—for example, nonprofit organizations and clubs devoted to conserva­ <1.0 <1.0 <1.0 1.6 1.5 tion—can use their property ® ® g «2 O -O s s w 3 O O c rights to purchase or lease land, u -tz o £ o '- 2 2 03 reward good stewardship, or pur­ x 2 xa. 5£ co 8 - i „ Q) £ CD “E3 ® E 03 chase covenants that restrict .1 - 0 M 5 M *