Life in the Market Ecosystem by Hayashi Stuart K.;

Author:Hayashi, Stuart K.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books

Figure 13.1 Average Concentrations of Smoke in London, 1800–1994. Source: Lomborg 2007, 156.

Figure 13.2 U.S. Particle Matter Emissions Per Capita, 1940–1990. Source: Goklany 1995, 360.

Figures 13.1 and 13.2 illustrate a principle that Princeton University economists Gene M. Grossman and Alan B. Krueger discovered. It is that, in the early stages of industrialization, the per capita quantity of air pollution directly correlates with the growth of the economy. There comes a peak, however, where the per capita quantity of air pollution becomes inversely proportional to the growth of the economy. Past the peak point, for every one real U.S. dollar generated, a smaller quantity of pollution emerges.60 Yes, entrepreneurs minimize their own costs when they invent methods to channel their waste byproducts back into productive commercial uses. That principle applies to a multitude of industries. Martin W. Lewis articulates that the commercial recovery “of wastes has in fact been on-going for several hundred years . . .” Take the example of acid iron salts, which were once a polluting byproduct of chemical processes. The DuPont Company took those acid irons salts and sold them to wastewater treatment plants. “One company’s garbage is often another’s raw material, and the interfirm marketing of waste products is a growing business.”61 By decreasing its supply of wastes in this manner between 1975 and 1990, 3M Corporation has slashed its own costs by $450 million through its Pollution Prevention Pays program.62 And consider two landfills—one in India, called the Deonar dumping ground, and the other in England, known as the Pitsea. Both landfills are the same size, but Deonar takes in more waste each year than Pitsea does, and it has double the toxicity level.63

Hence industrialized societies pollute less overall than do preindustrial ones. Historian Norman J.G. Pounds edifies, “Pollution has been a problem to human societies from very early times . . . Indeed, it might be said that it was in some respects more serious in early times than it is today.” Safely breathable “air and pure water have always been scarce commodities” for preindustrial communities. Antecedent to industrialization, water with which Europeans “cleaned themselves . . ., and which they occasionally drank, may have been taken from a river polluted by the drainage from stables and domestic soil pits.” At the time, a health-conscious person would sooner consume alcohol than drink water, as the brewing process rendered alcoholic beverages more sanitary than drinking water from a well or river.64 The reduction in size and quantity of labor inputs per unit of output translates to cost savings and price reductions in a plethora of commodities. In the year 1830 the price of moving a ton of goods per 1,000 miles by wagon came to $173.82 in 2008 A.D. U.S. dollars. Conversely, in 1910 the price of that same haulage by train came down to $22.43 in 2008 U.S. dollars—less than one-seventh the 1810 price. And the shipment arrived at its destination much faster, too.65

Contesting the Carrying-Capacity Claptrap

At this juncture Garrett Hardin and more than a few other antiglobalization environmentalists play the carrying-capacity card.

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