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By Robert J. Samuelson
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Modern environmentalism is a parable for our time: it is a story of huge success (mainly unrecognized) and a source of continuing alarm (mainly unjustified). In this, it typifies much of our politics. We have vast groups of problem-solvers-government officials, professional advocates, scientists and journalists whose very being requires that they perpetuate the problems they purport to solve. The perverse result is to create a false reality in which almost nothing good ever happens.
Just how this occurred in environmentalism is told in a smart new book by Gregg Easterbrook ('A Moment on the Earth: The Coming Age of Environmental Optimism." Viking). Easterbrook is a true environmentalist. He loves to hike and observe wildlife. He values clean air and water. But Easterbrook, a NEWSWEEK contributing editor and colleague, is also an acute reporter, offended by ill-informed doomsaying. While environmentalists constantly discover new "crises," he finds dramatic progress and few impending calamities.
Consider some of his evidence:
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It's gotten much cleaner. Since 1975, airborne levels of lead-a poison that can cause IQ loss in children-have dropped by 96 percent. Between 1982 and 1992, the number of Americans living in counties that failed federal air-quality standards declined by half, from 100 million to 54 million. Violations are also less severe. Smog is worst on the hottest days. In major East Coast cities in 1988, there were smog warnings on 39 percent of the days when temperatures exceeded 90 degrees; by 1993, warnings occurred on 14 percent of such days.
It's declining and never was as dangerous as claimed. In 1970 U.S. power plants and factories emitted 28 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. By 2000 this will be about 9 million tons, even though coal-fired electricity generation (a main source of sulfur) has doubled. (Sulfur dioxide and rain mix to produce sulfuric acid.) Meanwhile, in 1991, a 10-year government study found "no evidence of a general or unusual decline of forests in the United States or Canada due to acid rain." High acidity characterized 4 percent of lakes, not 50 percent as widely predicted.
Rather than receding from overcutting and urbanization, they are now increasing in richer nations. In the United States, forests reached their low point in the 1920s as a result of shoddy logging practices. Since then forests have expanded, because poor farmland has been retired and timber companies have reason to reforest. In the mid-19th century, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut were about 35 percent wooded; now they are 59 percent. Western Europe now has 30 percent more forest than it did 50 years ago.
Conventional wisdom ignores the tendency of wealthy, capitalist democracies to respect the environment. As countries become richer, they do a better job of suppressing the worst environmental abuses; prosperous peoples want to enjoy their surroundings. Moreover, greater economic efficiency makes better use of resources. In the early 1970s, 1,000 soda cans required 164 pounds of metal; now the figure is about 35 pounds. A Boeing 757 burns about 30 percent less fuel per passenger mile than the previous generation of jets.
Despite success, many environmentalists are still "proclaiming emergencies that do not exist," as Easterbrook writes. Health hazards are routinely sensationalized. The "crisis" of the moment is the "greenhouse effect": the danger that temperatures will rise because carbon dioxide (a product of carbon fuel combustion) will trap heat in the atmosphere. As Easterbrook shows, the threat may be overstated. Carbon dioxide is a tiny part of air (350 parts per million). Small shifts may not matter; or temperature changes may stay within a range that might occur naturally. A new report from the George C. Marshall Institute -headed bv Frederick Seitz, former president of the National Academy of Sciences-goes further; it dismisses chances of a major global warming as "inconsequential."
What Easterbrook urges is "ecorealism": an environmental sensibility better informed about both nature and society. It acknowledges success and also that the worst environmental havoc comes from nature. In 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed 50 percent more sulfur dioxide in a few hours than did all U.S. plants in a year. This does not justify complacency about man made environmental problems. But it suggests balancing environmental concerns with society's other needs.
Early environmental regulations focused on large problems, where big benefits (much cleaner air, for example) easily exceeded costs. Now growing costs may dwarf dwindling gains. Naturally, there's a backlash. In Congress, Republicans want a greater role for "cost-benefit" anaylsis. In general, this is constructive. Environmental rules can often be better crafted. Economist Milton Russell of the joint Institute for Energy & Environment in Knoxville, Tenn., estimates that the costs of cleaning up toxicwaste sites could be cut by about 40 percent by slightly altered practices that would pose no significant extra health risk.
Social movements can't stand still. Environmentalists ought to be celebrating success-and reappraising where they're going. Their values have captured popular culture; their rules have achieved major social gains. But by and large, they aren't celebrating or reappraising. They dislike "regulatory reform" and remain addicted to alarmism. In this, the press is complicit. "Bad" environmental news (real or alleged) routinely overshadows "good" news. In 1992 The New York Times buried a report about lower air pollution in a short story on page A24.
This reflexive pessimism speaks to the larger problem of our political culture, which is an inability to learn from experience. Environmental alarmism used to be more understandable. We knew less, and conditions were worse. But advocates cling to their rhetorical palisades. As their positions become more rigid, critics grow more exasperated. Absurdities on one side inspire absurdities on the other. The pattern affects countless issues. Debate becomes sbrill, and politics grows childish: increasingly uninformative and uncompromising.
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