Al Winslow wrote:
>
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> >... As the biggest user and producer of greenhouse gases don't take
> >interrest for economic reasons they, or anybody else that really should
> >listen, see no reason.
> >
> ---------------------------
I posted a brief, sarcastic reply. I'm now going to send an article by
one of our wisest thinkers, Thomas Sowell:
Jewish World Review July 30, 2002
by Thomas Sowell
At what cost?
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
Now that we have all breathed a sigh of relief at the rescue of the
miners trapped underground in Somerset, Pa., perhaps we might reconsider
some of the things that send men down into such hazardous places to get
us the fuel to power our economy.
The cost of coal is more than dollars and cents. It is also danger and
lives. So are the costs of other ways of producing power for our homes
and industries. Hydroelectric dams can burst and wipe out whole
communities. Oil can spill over vast areas of land or sea, or catch fire
and pollute the air. Nuclear power has its dangers as well, as Chernobyl
demonstrated.
Too often, individuals, organizations and movements seize upon one
particular kind of cost or danger and try to block it by all means
possible. But how many miners' lives are we prepared to risk, in order
to spare any inconvenience to Caribou near the Alaskan oil reserves? Or
to spare the delicate feelings of nature cultists who will wring their
hands over oil drilling that neither they nor 99 percent of the American
people will ever see?
Children can set their hearts on one thing and throw tantrums when they
can't get it, or can't get it right now. But the mark of maturity is
weighing one thing against another in an imperfect world.
An adult weighing trade-offs cannot demand that nuclear power be "safe"
because nothing on the face of this earth is 100 percent safe. The only
meaningful question is: Compared to what? Compared to digging for coal
or burning oil? Compared to hydroelectric dams? Compared to running out
of electricity and having blackouts?
Demanding "clean" air and water is like demanding "safe" sources of
power. There are no such things. There is air and water containing
greater and lesser amounts of other elements and compounds, some of
which represent varying amounts of danger that can be removed at varying
costs.
Some of these elements and compounds are dangerous pollutants, which can
be removed to a great extent at relatively modest costs. But to remove
that last infinitesimal fraction of pollutants means skyrocketing costs
to avoid ever more remote, or even questionable, dangers.
Some things that might be lethal in high concentrations may be easily
handled by the body's natural defenses when there are only minute traces
in the air or water. Unfortunately, such complications do not lend
themselves to political slogans or to ideological crusades that can
energize zealots in environmental cults or Chicken Littles who demand
absolute "safety."
Politicians pander to such people, especially during election years, as
California's Governor Gray Davis has done by approving more stringent
"clean air" standards for automobiles sold in that state. Since there is
no way to burn fuel without producing emissions, the mantra of "lower
emission standards" is a blank check for never-ending escalations of
costs for removing ever more remote dangers.
The most fraudulent of these lower emissions efforts are those directed
toward producing electric cars, which will have no emissions at all,
because the pollutants are emitted where the electricity is produced,
rather than in the cars where it is used. But the emissions are still
produced.
True zealots say that "if it saves just one human life," any measure for
the sake of safety is worth whatever it costs. But what if its costs can
include other human lives?
Wealth saves lives. The miners who were trapped underground in
Pennsylvania would have been dead in many Third World countries, because
the costly technology and the highly trained specialists who rescued
them would simply not have been there, and could not have been gotten
there in time over dirt roads or through jungles.
An earthquake that kills a dozen people in California will kill hundreds
of people in a less affluent nation and thousands in a truly poor
country. Not only does wealth enable buildings and other structures to
be built to more earthquake resistant standards, wealth also provides
more advanced rescue equipment and more elaborately equipped hospitals
with more highly trained personnel to treat the injured.
They say talk is cheap. But some kinds of political rhetoric can end up
costing lives as well as money.
Thomas Sowell Archives
© 2002, Creators Syndicate
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A93MR48T18
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