| | Mike,
Driving a car which pollutes space is an interesting question. If majority of the herd tries to choke itself to death, how am I to protect my natural right to clean air, a right which I am sure is beyond need of proof, and in what way I can apply philosophy to understand this right in first place? While I agree with Bill's answer (and Sam's above that), pollution is kind of a non-issue because of the vast improvements. Bjorn Lomborg wrote a book: "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and in it (p 163-170) is found the evidence that pollution is becoming a non-issue (due to capitalism and technology). I will list excerpts:
In the eighteenth century, the cities were indescribably dirty, Lawrence Stone tells us that:
"the city ditches, now often filled with stagnant water, were commonly used as latrines; butchers killed animals in their shops and threw the offal of the carcasses into the streets; dead animals were left to decay and fester where they lay; latrine pits were dug close to wells, thus contaminating the water supply. Decomposing bodies of the rich in burial vaults beneath the church often stank out parson and congregation ... (1150)
The city was so polluted that the poet Shelley wrote: "Hell must be much like London, a smoky and populous city. (1152)
Much of the pollution was due to cheap coal with a high-sulfur content ...
Even before restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral was complete, the building was beginning to get dirty again. (1155) The heavy smoke caused house paint to lose its luster so fast, many leases stipulated that facades had to be repainted tri-annually. (1156)
" ... when yet to them who are but a Mile out of Town, the Air is sharp, clear, and healthy ... "
The last severe smog of December 1952 still killed about 4,000 Londoners in just seven days. (1162)
... the [smoke pollution] levels of the 1980s-1990s are below the levels of the late sixteenth century. ... with respect to the worst pollutant the London air has not been as clean as it is today since the Middle Ages. Almost all of the modern period has been more polluted with smoke than it is today. Air pollution is not a new phenomenon that has got worse and worse -- it is an old phenomenon, that has been getting better and better, leaving London cleaner than it has been since medieval times.
Figure 87 shows the overall annual cost per person of pollution from 1977 to 1999 in the US. ... the overall problems are much less serious today than they were just 22 years ago. ... If we go even further back to the 1960s ... an even more dramatic 70 percent drop in air pollution over the past 39 years. (1170)
... for every monitoring station showing a statistically valid upward trend in toxic air pollutants, more than six monitoring stations showed downward trends. (1174)
... since 1957 particulate pollution has fallen by 62 percent in the US ...
During the last smog in London in December 1952 smoke levels above 6,000 [micrograms per cubic meter] were recorded -- more than 300 times the present-day level in London. (1198)
Since 1980, the particulate pollution in Japan has declined 14 percent, in Canada 46 percent and in Germany 48.5 percent. (1202) Athens has witnessed a 43 percent decline since 1985, and Spain a 34 percent decline since 1986. (1203) Paris has experienced a dramatic 66 percent decline since 1970. (1204)
Specialist literature has contained a lot of discussion about the degree to which legislation has been crucial, or at least important, to the reduction of air pollution. Many studies have -- perhaps surprisingly -- not been able to document any noteworthy effect. (1212)
Analysis of the British Clean Air Act of 1956 shows that while pollution has, of course, fallen, the difference between the rate of fall before and after 1956, or the difference between cities that did or did not have pollution plans, is not discernible. "It seems likely that in the absence of the Clean Air Act of 1956 substantial improvements in air quality would have occurred anyway." (1213)
The explanation is to a high degree to be found in improved products and technology for industry and the home.
Recap:
Pollution, because of capitalism and technology, is becoming a non-issue. This gives rise to the intriguing proposition that, to get even cleaner (to get even less pollution), we don't need more laws -- i.e., more fine-tuning and parsing out of individual harms such as the harm you get by jogging next to the freeway during rush hour -- but instead, we need more industry and capitalism.
:-)
Ed
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 3/29, 6:15pm)
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