What America looked like before the EPA, in photos • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by tacomonstrous » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:37 AM UTC

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.

Protect them with what authority and with what resources? Everyone raises their own militia against bad actors? What if the bad actor owns half the land in the region and all the guns?

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

#82

Post by crimsonalucard » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:38 AM UTC

_red wrote: post #22

filleokus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself a really pro market guy, but I can't agree with the statement: > free enterprise will work to protect the environment, as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits I mean, isn't the environment the prime example of a situation where externalities and the tragedy of the commons describe the problems for the free market to solve the problems at hand? Further, free enterprises exist to maximise…

Imbued in your statement is an even more difficult knot to undo. "Tragedy of the Commons" is caused by the very existence of the modern state. Common land = public land. In a truly private system, one in which all land was owned, every parcel of land would have some advocate who cared very deeply about the environmental quality of their land. You producing pollution on your land that negatively affected mine would re…

Commons isn't just land. It is anything that is shared publicly. Roads and the oxygen you breath are two examples.

Both of those examples mentioned above are right now being heavily polluted.

The tragedy of the commons is essentially this: The cost of me polluting the air by driving a car is much less then the cost of me not polluting the air and walking 20 miles to work instead. My pollution contribution to the air is minor when compared to walking 20 miles and therefore by choosing to drive i am acting logically. The phenomenon ghe theory addresses is that when everybody does this the aggregate contribution to pollution ends up destroying the commons.

Therein lies the tragedy: groups of people acting logically in picking the lesser evil end up destroying the commons.

Why do people even argue about this theory? It's readily apparent if you drive a car or use any form of non renewable energy.

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

#83

Post by crimsonalucard » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:42 AM UTC

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…

You drive a car. Everyone drives a car knowing that the exhaust pushes toxic fumes into the air. You do it and i do it. What invisible hand is stopping this? The evidence is right in front of your face.... you don't need a life time addendum to free market theory to show that it is wrong.

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

#84

Post by awful » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:44 AM UTC

stordoff wrote: post #18

pavlov wrote: post #3

Americans love their freedom. Which is more important: the freedom of corporations to innovate in extracting natural resources, or the freedom of citizens to pursue happiness without being poisoned by drinking water? The last photo on that page shows Mary Workman holding a glass of well water that the Hanna Coal Company rendered undrinkable. Something to remember for those who pine for the days of "great coal jobs" a…

Not to take away from the broader point (I think the EPA and like organisations are very important), but would Workman not have recourse through other means (e.g. under nuisance)?

We have a vast history of negative experience - your experiment was performed historically, and failed. Regulations didn't just appear - they arrived often because of often vast weaknesses or failures in our systems; whether moral, ethical, physical, or judicial. I lived then and things had gotten bad and individuals suing (for nuisance) was not practical - it literally took the power of a government to force change upon those both innocent and guilty.

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

#85

Post by fsloth » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:45 AM UTC

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…

Adam Smith's invisible hand idea was in the context of nail factories operated by maybe ten people, and with logistics chains maybe spanning to the next village. It would be very efficient in finding the best nail maker in the close vicinity. Or, the best monopolist that burnt down or purchased all competing nail factories.

Efficient markets NEED an efficient government to put down ground rules and enforce them.

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

#86

Post by hagbarth » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #69

I realize that HN generally skews left politically, but this is literally nothing more than a puff piece. There's nothing of value here.

Wait, what makes the EPA a left thing? It was proposed by Richard Nixon.

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

#87

Post by ThomPete » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #80

ThomPete wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conservatives are not reluctant they care about the environment themselves but they are reluctant with regards to letting the federal government determine who the winners are and I would tempt to agree with them. As an example, shale gas did more for US CO2 reductions than any policy ever did while at the same time providing cheap energy and to conservatives, cheap energy is just as important as clean environment som…

Lax environmental regulation is picking winners.

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.

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

#88

Post by IAmEveryone » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:50 AM UTC

zhyder wrote: post #68

It's unfortunate that the EPA is under attack by conservatives who want limited government. If you start from first principles about what the min viable government should do, a big part of its charter would be to prevent major tragedies of the commons. And the environment is a textbook example of something that'd suffer the tragedy of the commons without government oversight. I prefer a bigger government with a bigge…

Being conservative used to have some meaning. The EPA was established by Richard Nixon, of all people.

If you care less about other people than Nixon, you should really ask yourself: “?How far have I strayed from the pack?”

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

#89

Post by eadmund » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 11:57 AM UTC

titzer wrote: post #11

simula67 wrote: post #6

After EPA : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/An...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_wate... The EPA didn't create this mess. They did screw up handling it, however. What happened was that the EPA accidentally released the waste products from an abandoned mine that had been accumulating in a reservoir for decades all at once . What do you think would have happened without any regulation at all? That shit would already be everywhere.

Well, for one think it'd have been diluted over the course of decades rather than all being released at once. That would have been far better for the environment.

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

#90

Post by awful » Fri, Mar 16, 2018, 12:01 PM UTC

I lived then and these pictures are very shallow and only show a little of what things were like. They should show things like Fishkill, NY, and how we would dump trash out in the sea, how every area had an impromptu dump down by the river where old mattresses and wash machines ended up and took decades to clean up, where people thought it was OK to dump their auto oil directly onto the ground, massive exposed unlined dumps where auto and household chemicals would leak eventually into aquifers, companies dumping things like chrome plating, benzene enough it floated on drinking aquifer (see Love Canal, etc.), where a guy thought it OK to buy medical waste and bury hundreds of the barrels in his back yard "because it was his land", or along Lake Erie where you could not even get near it from stink of dead Alewives(arguably man-made). The environment was worse than they portray in this pictorial.