Everyone's Business

I rise on a weekday morning to an alarm clock powered by electricity produced from sulfur-free coal. The remnants of my beard disappear down the drain, not to the Connecticut River, as in the past, but to the nearby sewage treatment plant. After showering, I open my medicine cabinet (painted with lead-free paint) and take out my stick deodorant (the spray I once used had a possible effect on atmospheric ozone levels). A plane flies overhead, but the noise is not deafening because of restrictions on sound pollution.

I walk to my garage and put last night's returnable bottle into a container near one filled with leaves and brush, which I no longer am permitted to burn. I am reminded that our yard is not quite as insect free as it used to be because of limitations on pesticides, a problem compounded by the new conservation zone across the street, which tends to breed mosquitoes.

I put my soon-to-be recycled newspaper under my arm and get into my car, but it starts roughly: the emission-control mechanism needs to be adjusted. Entering the street, the car skids dangerously on the new snow because the roads are not salted as they once were. Fortunately, the portable fuel container in the trunk does not spill, thanks to its new plastic cap and spout. Stopping by the filling station, I note that the unleaded gas my car requires costs ten cents per gallon more than regular.

Enough: it is extraordinary how much even the small details of my life have changed to accommodate the all-pervading influence of government and environmentalists. Although my narrative suggests more than a little annoyance, not all of these violations of my freedoms have been negative by any means.

Benefits

One of my favorite cities—Boston—is far more beautiful without its layer of yellow smog, and it is reassuring to know I breathe cleaner air. In my life insurance business, the mortality and morbidity tables have improved because the incidence of sickness and deaths from cardiovascular disease has declined. Recreation land has become more available and is better used, in part because people are more aware of it. I am much less inclined to open a car window and dispose of a chewing gum wrapper; indeed, I am offended when I see others litter "my property." I do not miss the roar of jet engines. I welcome the return of shad and salmon to the Connecticut River. And I applaud the architects and city planners who create or preserve green belts in our urban centers.

A decade and more of official environmentalism has generated a broad-based sensitivity about clean land, clean air, and clean water (it almost seems to defy the economics of supply and demand that we pay so little for clean water). I now am acutely aware of chemical waste and radioactive discharge and the need for this nation to manage these and other societal by-products in an environmentally safe way. Stated differently, the environment has become a key element in my vision of the quality of life.

Costs

Government's intervention on behalf of the environment has not been without cost, however, both financial and in terms of personal freedom. Perhaps the most insidious are indirect or hidden levies on the consumer, camouflaged as higher prices of final products. The automobile is a perfect example: environmental requirements like the catalytic converter have increased retail prices substantially. Electricity prices reflect, in part, fuel prohibitions and underwriting the cost of converting power plants from one fuel to another. I pay more for returnable bottles and cans. And taxes pay for expenditures needed to enforce new regulations.

Environmentalism has had much to do with the near-moribund state of commercial nuclear power in this country. I am no expert—either on energy economics or on the technical risks involved—but nuclear-generated electricity would appear to offer favorable opportunities. Has fair and equitable discussion of the issues taken place, or have emotional arguments been allowed to carry the day?

Government has permeated still another aspect of our lives. Ideally, what is needed is a balance between the needs of the environment and responsible business interests, and I am not certain we have always attained that balance.

Then there is the increased inconvenience—the time to return bottles and cans and to dispose of brush and other debris, the frustration of things that no longer work as well. Perhaps the best example, again, is the automobile. In addition to boosting sticker prices, environmental restrictions have lowered gas mileage, increased operating costs, decreased engine performance, increased repair bills, .and required more frequent state inspections at higher costs, not to mention those higher prices for unleaded gasoline.

Does not government have a responsibility to quantify both the direct and indirect costs of environmental progress? I would estimate the total figure is staggering, and wonder whether the results might have been achieved at lower cost. Moreover, I am concerned that the public does not recognize the regulatory origin of the indirect costs and thus most citizens have only a foggy perception of the enormity of the total costs. This is a form of deception, and it raises a question of government's accountability.

Still, however, I come down on the side of the environmental progress of the last fifteen years. It has been purchased at a cost of both money and personal freedom, but modest efforts have begun to evaluate efficiencies and assess accountabilities. In my view, the real challenge may lie ahead, as we must deal with issues like groundwater pollution and hazardous waste disposal whose costs may be extraordinary. These issues must be tackled if progress is to continue, but the process must balance conflicting interests and feature full open and, I hope, unemotional analysis of the facts, with accountabilities well stated. Above all, leadership will be required from the public and private sectors. Government may have a special custodial role, but environmental quality ts everyone's business.