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Earth Day Reality
Check
Embrace the Truth Not Environmental Hysteria
Ty
McCauslin (Commonwealth Foundation)
Forty years ago, native Pennsylvanian Rachel Carson and author of Silent Spring
wrote "We stand now where two roads diverge." Carson's statement accurately
reflects the current state of Pennsylvania's regulatory affairs--but which fork
in this road will today's state policymakers decide to take?
Will they embrace the evidence that economic prosperity and real environmental
progress are not mutually exclusive? Or will they travel down the tax-laden,
over-regulated highway that will continue to stall Pennsylvania's economy?
Despite the claims of hand-wringing environmentalists and a few of their friends
on Capitol Hill, Pennsylvanians have real environmental improvements to
celebrate this Earth Day 2003. In fact, a recent headline in Environment and
Climate News declared that "Pennsylvania Offers a Blueprint for Environmental
Protection." The article states that in the Commonwealth:
"Solid waste, air pollution, and water pollution have been permanently reduced
by hundreds of millions of tons and billions of gallons; millions of pounds of
toxic emissions have been eliminated. More than 33,300 acres of abandoned mines
have been reclaimed, 967 miles of streams cleaned up, and 5,000 acres of
wetlands restored. The state even exceeded its goal of recycling 35 percent of
household waste."
Fortunately, the good news doesn't end in Pennsylvania. All over America there
are plenty of environmental milestones to celebrate any time during the year.
Beginning with the quality of the air we breathe, the United States continues to
enjoy a clean air renaissance. A September 2002 report from the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) revealed that air quality has dramatically improved
since 1970, while during the same time frame gross domestic product grew by 161
percent, vehicle-miles traveled increased by 150 percent and energy consumption
rose 42 percent.
What about the supposed destruction of our forests? Well, instead of boycotting
the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum this Earth Day, consider this fact about the
logging industry: each year more trees are planted in the United States than are
harvested-as has been the case for more than a half century.
Today, America's forests contain 28 percent more standing timber than in 1952.
More amazingly, 70 percent of the forests that existed in 1600 before the
Pilgrims arrived are still here. Why? The answer is twofold. First, mankind
now has the technology to effectively battle forest fires--the majority of which
are ignited by Mother Nature's lightning in the first place--and second, wood is
a completely renewable and recyclable natural resource.
As for the world's "shrinking" oil supplies, we are also far from running on
empty. Even with ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, proven reserves of oil
and gas have climbed more than 700 percent since the 1950s. A U.S. Geological
survey places the world's currently known oil reserves at nearly one trillion
barrels, enough to satisfy petroleum needs for at least another 45 years.
Furthermore, the sky isn't falling-or even raining acid-in Pennsylvania or any
where else in America. After more than a decade of study, with a taxpayer price
tag estimated between $400 and $500 million, the U.S. National Acid Rain
Assessment Program concluded that this so-called "rain of terror" has had no
significant effects on wildlife, forests or human health.
As for the food we eat and the water we drink, these essential resources have
never been safer. Americans consume over 110 millions gallons of water every
day, all of which is routinely tested by utility companies thousands of times
annually to insure the safest drinking quality.
Believe it or not, our food is exposed to a higher amount of "toxic substances"
due to Mother Nature than through man-made chemical additives and pesticides.
For example, the majority of pesticides consumed in the human diet are naturally
present in plants to ward off insects and other predators. Keep in mind, the
word pesticide is usually only a dirty word in the radical environmentalist
vernacular, and most food-related illnesses are entirely avoidable.
Finally, be of good cheer! Even though we can never avoid risk completely, most
of the 21st Century's so-called environmental crises have been or are in the
process of being solved. As Cato Institute economists Stephen Moore and the
late Julian L. Simon summed it up in their best seller It's Getting Better All
The Time, "The essential point is Americans are not resource destroyers but
resource creators, who will leave future generations with a greater abundance of
nature's bounty."
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