When Give Me a Break John aired his 10 libertarian grievances on his ABC 1-hour special back around the turn of the millennium, the most memorable moment for me came when he suggested that regulation of air and water pollutants serves no purpose, asserting that the air and water in the NYC vicinity are amazingly clean, and would be so with or without such regulations. To demonstrate his water point, he took a dip in the Hudson River.
Mr. Stossel’s got a few years on me, but not many, so his youth roughly spans the same era as mine, but evidently he either doesn’t remember certain details of that time, or perhaps he never knew them in the first place. George Carlin used to do a very funny bit about swimming in NYC waters during his childhood, and he certainly wasn’t talking about clean water. I also noticed that Mr. S. didn’t catch and eat a Hudson River fish, and most residents along the Hudson know that no matter how much cleaner the river is now than when George Carlin was growing up, the fish swimming in those waters still carry inside themselves deadly PCBs from that river water.
As clueless as John apparently was about the water pollution stories, which included the Cuyahoga River fire and similar tales, I still have to wonder how he missed the air pollution. Various school groups from my upstate area took visits to NYC, and I remember that looking downriver while crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge, you couldn’t see any of the Manhattan skyscrapers on the horizon, but you could always clearly see the smog cloud.
Following my HS visits to the NYC smog cloud, I headed to the midwest for college, getting to know the Chicago smog cloud much better. As one of my colleagues said, “The air in this city starts 100 miles out.” For most of the 1970s I lived in that metropolitan area, and had occasion to return to it from every major point on the compass. Without planning to do so, I had the experience of seeing that smog cloud when approaching from N, S, W and E, plus a few other variants as well.
Early one morning I also got to experience how the sun rises, or actually doesn’t, when living inside the smog cloud. As a consolation for pulling an all-nighter in preparation for an exam at Northwestern, I thought, “Well, at least I’ll get to see a sunrise, for the first time in my life.” But actually, I didn’t. As I sat, book in hand, glancing out the east-facing window, twilight slowly gave way to full daylight, but the sun never appeared on the horizon. About an hour after the official sunrise time, the sun slowly appeared above the smoggy haze, and around 8, I walked over to the dining hall on a bright, sunny morning, prepared for my exam but disappointed by the hazy sunrise episode.
Fast forward a few decades, and in 1998 I set out from Brooklyn with a companion on my way to visit Wyoming. Along the approach to Chicago, I spoke to my companion about the smog cloud, and I kept a watchful eye. We got closer, and closer, and I never saw it. Then somehow we got by the city, and looking in the rearview mirror on that partly-sunny afternoon, I didn’t see any smog cloud. Slowly, as we cruised through western IL and into IA, I came to the realization that the Chicago smog cloud of the 1970s was gone. Later, after returning to Brooklyn, I made a similar observation on a return trip to NYC from upstate, noting that I no longer saw a smog cloud on the horizon when looking downriver from the Tappan Zee Bridge.
I would not give the all clear sign the way Mr. S. does, because combustion engines running on petrochemicals still spew poisonous toxins, especially those running on diesel fuel, but I would assert that the air quality in major U.S. cities improved remarkably between 1970 and 1998. John wants to tell us that whatever change occurred in this period happened naturally, and not because of the environmental regulations that began taking effect in the early 1970s. Strangely, at least for John, this natural air renewal hasn’t happened in foreign cities that. coincidentally, lack strong air quality regulations. Perusing the list of cities worldwide with the worst air quality, you have to get down the page quite a ways before you find a U.S. metropolis. We still have plenty to do, but we have made significant progress, and I feel quite certain that without those clean air regulations, that old smog cloud would still be visible looking downstream from the Tappan Zee Bridge.
John calls himself a libertarian. Coincidentally, so do David and Charles. And what business are those 2 Koch Bros. in? They’ve got fingers in different pies, but many of their revenue streams connect to fossil fuels in some way. As the Porter Ranch gas leak reminds us, a large proportion of pollution can be traced to fossil fuels, without even touching on the climate change discussion. David and Charles would like the freedom to pollute the air and water without any pesky government regulations interfering with them in any way. John wants to tell us that such air and water pollution won’t do us any harm. Could there possibly be a connection between the rich guys who want a certain message trumpeted in the media, and a guy coming along and playing the exact tune that the rich guys want?
Oh, and about climate change, David and Charles, whatever they actually believe, still obviously want to confuse the issue and make everyone question it, if possible. Then John comes along recently with his media opinion piece suggesting that the climate scientists have a financial interest in exaggerating the threat. Personally, it sounds to me like a certain media mouthpiece might have a financial interest in dismissing the threat of climate change, and of air and water pollution. John, you say we don’t need regulations to keep our air and water safe? You say air and water magically clean up pollution and renew themselves without us doing anything? John, give me a break!