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What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

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Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#141

Post by rayiner »

13years wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it does, due to the structure of the environmental laws. In a libertarian system, you’d simply ban pollution (I.e. ban the externalizations of environmental costs), and then let the market and the courts hash things out. If a company was found dumping pollutants into the water, people would sue them, and the costs of all of that would get properly priced into the company’s products. But the environmental laws are…

Due to property rights, all pollution was illegal prior to the EPA. The EPA's purpose is to determine how much pollution is allowed. During the immediate period prior to the EPA, it wasn't so much it was legal, but the courts began to ignore property rights due to the pressures of what was believed to be common good to let industries thrive. In some cases property rights are much stricter and can be better enforced,…

> During the immediate period prior to the EPA,

By "immediate period" you mean a couple of hundred years before 1970. English courts started ignoring property rights (e.g. the right of downstream riparian users to undiminished water quality from upstream activities) in the 1700s or so during the first industrial revolution.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#142

Post by ABCLAW »

roenxi wrote: post #127
kochb wrote: post #108

Hey all, we need to go meta for a sec and talk about why this article doesn't belong here, and how culturally this is a step in the wrong direction for HN. First off, this is blogspam, the original Popular Science article is a bit better. There's a reason blogspam is discouraged by the guidelines. More importantly, this is a particularly pernicious blogspam because the selected photos (atlas, burning boat, water glas…

Also on the meta front, I don't actually see any discussion of the pictures themselves. For example, I can't figure out what the problem with the Atlas Chemical Company is by inspection - that looks a lot like industrial levels of water vapour. Only in the mine water example do I see what the issue is clearly. The discussion seems to have gone straight to related political issues and the broader environment. Interest…

Those stacks aren't popping out water vapour. Check the size of the stacks and the factory - there's no scrubbers or fractionation columns preprocessing the waste gasses.

Paper mills are very polluting enterprises - the water you're seeing is a thin sheet with a mostly laminar flow. It is opaque. This is not normal. The level of waste solutes in the raw ejecta is absurdly high, and is comprised of decomposed organic material & high oxygen content which leads to algal blooms, bleaches, heavy metals, chelating agents, etc.

I think the burning barge is pretty self explanatory.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#143

Post by maxxxxx »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #8

I've never really understood why conservatives are so reluctant to look after their environment, after all they get to live in it as well.

An explanation could that the "conservatives" prominent in the US now have strayed far away from being actually conservative.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#144

Post by crimsonalucard »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #140
iainmerrick wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Hardins theory is addressing tthings like the ocean and the air. No, Hardin himself intended his theory to address land usage; it's this article that argues the theory doesn't actually work properly in that context.

iainmerrick. You are completely and utterly incorrect. Read hardins original article. Hardin is addressing Everything that is "common." I can prove it to you. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full This is the original article by Hardin. Ctrl-F oceans. Then Ctrl-F pollution. You will see that Hardin directly references pollution and oceans as commons. If you read the entire article you will see that…

Actually to be honest. Hardins article is beautiful. It addresses the theory of the commons in its entirety and it also addresses putting the commons under regulation. The writing, scope and sophistication to the topic is wider in Hardins original article. The rebuttal you've submitted is actually not well done, it's almost as if the author (and yourself as well) didn't read Hardins original article in its entirety.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#145

Post by heurist »

ekianjo wrote: post #23
hliyan wrote: post #2

When I was younger, I honestly believed in the explanation that left to their own devices, free enterprise will work to protect the environment, as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits. What I didn't take into account was that this argument doesn't work for enterprises run by beings with limited lifespans. All except the most empathic humans will not incur any cost to avoid consequences that are beyond th…

On the contrary. Give property rights to everything and individuals and corporations will have every incentive to protect what they own, be it environmental resources or anything else.

Maybe if you have the time, knowledge, and financing required to pursue litigation... And allow renters the same rights... And make test kits easy to access, afford, and interpret... And...

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#146

Post by 13years »

rayiner wrote: post #141
13years wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to property rights, all pollution was illegal prior to the EPA. The EPA's purpose is to determine how much pollution is allowed. During the immediate period prior to the EPA, it wasn't so much it was legal, but the courts began to ignore property rights due to the pressures of what was believed to be common good to let industries thrive. In some cases property rights are much stricter and can be better enforced,…

> During the immediate period prior to the EPA, By "immediate period" you mean a couple of hundred years before 1970. English courts started ignoring property rights ( e.g. the right of downstream riparian users to undiminished water quality from upstream activities) in the 1700s or so during the first industrial revolution.

True, poorly worded on my part. Intended to mean the state of the situations immediately prior was that property rights were no longer enforced, but that process took some time to undo such as the 1939 Restatement of Torts.

For anyone interested in a deep dive on the matter. A good reference book 'Managing the Environment, Managing Ourselves: A History of American Environmental Policy'

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#147

Post by ThomPete »

tacomonstrous wrote: post #114
ThomPete wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is talking about lax? You can set rules for what you will allow and then have the market find solutions that can live up to that. Nothing lax or picking winners about that.

Any regulation will necessary create winners and losers. After all, it's purpose is to put limits on spheres of human activity that were presumably occurring. Otherwise, one wouldn't need to regulate them. Coal plants will and should be losers under any reasonable regime.

As a result of the regulation yes of course, which is a very different thing than deciding what needs to win which is what is happening right now and why EPA is getting some criticism.

Coal should and will lose once there is a cheaper, cleaner, more reliable and more effective solution out there. Just like coal replaced the burning of trees and made it possible to provide energy from outside instead of people having to use a fireplace inside their homes (which was very unhealthy).

There actually are better solutions than coal one is nuclear yet an absurd amount of pushback from environmental organizations and too many politicians have kept coal around because of their unsubstantiated fearmongering. Another is shale gas which has reduced the CO2 of the US substantially but despite that is also getting a lot of pushback from environmental organizations and politicians

Neither wind nor solar can provide enough energy at scale and at a realistic price for the US let alone for the entire world yet that is what is being forced rather than the much better alternatives.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#148

Post by LyndsySimon »

wallace_f wrote: post #112
throwaway2016a wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a shame that is considered a "conservative" view. I think a lot of Libertarians are coming around to have a view similar to your's. That the commons belongs to all of us and polluting and destroying it should be punished. Republican's on the other hand seem to thing liberty only applies to corporations. In fact if you delete the part about wanting big government, I could have almost mistaken you for a Li…

The word has been hijacked. Libertarians want to maximize liberty, which since the Age of Reason has been interpreted in government to mean to restrict as few freedoms as necessary to protect the remainder. One example: don't let people commit murder. It is perfectly reasonable this kind of reasoning apply to other types of killing or unjust aggression, such as poisoning the environment. So we have the NAP. But the w…

> or people who are anarchists (which is decidedly not libertarian).

I grant you that most anarchists are not libertarians, but I fail to see how Anarcho-Capitalists are not.

> Perhaps we need to run away and invent a new word.

We've done that, several times. We were once "liberals", then "libertarians", and it feels like we're now fracturing into subgroups that take on various labels: "ancap", "minarchist", "classical liberal", etc.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#149

Post by LyndsySimon »

cimmanom wrote: post #41
burfog wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't reluctant, but you have to speak their language. You may be eager to see a government agency placing limits on businesses, but that won't go over well at all. A better approach is to speak in terms of paying for what you damage. The economy matters, and you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet... but you pay for anything you break. So you end up charging a price, preferably to be paid to those who a…

But what affects just one's own property vs affecting others? Can I dump toxic waste on my own land? What happens when 10 years later it starts leaching into the soil and poisoning nearby streams and farms? What about the animals who eat on my land and then run back into the forest where they get shot for someone else's dinner, and that someone else ends up consuming elevated levels of heavy metals? What about the pe…

> Can I dump toxic waste on my own land?

Sure, it's your land.

> What happens when 10 years later it starts leaching into the soil and poisoning nearby streams and farms?

Those impacted landowners now have a tort claim against you, which they should pursue.

> What about the animals who eat on my land and then run back into the forest where they get shot for someone else's dinner, and that someone else ends up consuming elevated levels of heavy metals?

They now have a tort claim against you, which they should pursue.

> What about the person who buys the land from me? Do I have to disclose the presence of the waste to them?

Yes, you should. If you don't, the purchaser now has a tort claim against you, which they should pursue.

---

I know I'm being a bit trite with the above, but I mean no offense. The difference here is one of strategy, not base ideas. I (and other libertarians) believe that people who harm others through their action should be responsible for that harm. Proponents of the EPA believe that people should be limited by government regulation to a minimal level of harm.

I'll also grant that, prior to the EPA, the tort system in the US was ineffective at resolving these issues. I don't believe that was a problem with the process itself; it was (and remains) a problem with the courts.

Re: What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

#150

Post by iainmerrick »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #144
crimsonalucard wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iainmerrick. You are completely and utterly incorrect. Read hardins original article. Hardin is addressing Everything that is "common." I can prove it to you. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full This is the original article by Hardin. Ctrl-F oceans. Then Ctrl-F pollution. You will see that Hardin directly references pollution and oceans as commons. If you read the entire article you will see that…

Actually to be honest. Hardins article is beautiful. It addresses the theory of the commons in its entirety and it also addresses putting the commons under regulation. The writing, scope and sophistication to the topic is wider in Hardins original article. The rebuttal you've submitted is actually not well done, it's almost as if the author (and yourself as well) didn't read Hardins original article in its entirety.

I agree, the Hardin article is terrific.

There are at least three categories, not just two (as Hardin clearly explains): common ownership, nationalized ownership, and private ownership.

The Monbiot article argues that common ownership doesn't necessarily mean a destructive free-for-all; often the people who actually live in a certain land do a good job of looking after it.

As for private ownership, free market fans tend to assume this is the best approach, but individual owners aren't always incentivized to make the best long-term use of land.

I don't think Monbiot is entirely against Hardin, he's saying more that Hardin is being misread as a justification for private ownership of land only. (I don't think Hardin takes a position on private vs nationalized; he's only concerned with commons vs owned.)

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