10 ms·

What America looked like before the EPA, in photos

228 points by AJRF 9y ago

hliyan 9y ago
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 their lifespans (or, in some cases, beyond their immediate offsprings' lifespans). That is why I believe that Adam Smith's invisible hand will fail to help the environment...
- andrewclunn 9y ago
  Even most libertarians recognize that in situations where the very physical nature of something (like air) means that pollution won't stay where it was created, it's an unavoidable tragedy of the commons. Free markets are much better at avoiding such situations in most circumstances, but when the tragedy of the commons is inescapable, regulation is the only weapon we have. Now issues with the current form of the EPA may arise, but the notion of removing it with nothing to fill the void doesn't even fly with my Any Rand loving self.
- jeroldmcfiggen 9y ago
  The problem is the modern 'corporation'. First govermnent allows anonymous structures like this that are free to pursue maximum profitability with minumum legal responsibility for the individuals behind this structure. Then afterwards it needs to regulate that which it allowed in the first place.
- filleokus 9y ago
  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 their own profit and not to protect the "market". The only circumstance under which I expect the free market to freely solve any environmental issues is if the consumer demands more (truly) environmentally friendly products and services, moving the demand and hence the profit from polluting products.
  - _red 9y ago
    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 result in a lawsuit. It is really the very existence of the legal-fiction of "public land" (ie. land that everyone owns), which gives rise to many of the real environmental abuses. *typo
    - titzer 9y ago
      Well, American Indians and probably most of the indigenous peoples of the Earth would thoroughly and fundamentally disagree that the invented concept is "public land", but rather "private land". In a world where corporations buy land, pillage all of its natural resources, then sell off a smoking crater, the loser is always the environment, as corporations and people downcycle real estate constantly, extracting their profits, destroying what was there before, dodging externalities, and then often defrauding the next investor. Look what was there before and what is left over after the whole cycle. It's shit. You should take a look at the forests of New Zealand and the movement to make logging on public lands illegal.
      - golergka 9y ago
        If you're talking about the pre-colonization state of these cultures, they would disagree with a lot of concepts we use now. For example, zero and negative numbers. Does it mean that zero and negative numbers are morally bankrupt?
        titzer 9y ago
        The universe is amoral and mathematics doubly so, but the OP was talking about how the "invented concept" of public land gives rise to this tragedy of the commons. I am directly disagreeing in that A.) public land is the invented concept (it isn't, private land is) B.) public land is where the tragedy of the commons occurs (it isn't always, as tragedy happens on private lands, perhaps moreso). I can give more examples of B.) where corporations visit environmental destruction on lands they own (e.g. gold mines) and then sell off the leftover, ruined real estate, having still profited handsomely in the end.
- lend000 9y ago
  A society isn't free (and neither are its markets) if there isn't a strong rule of law preventing aggression. Polluting non-localized/public resources aggresses against others and therefore reduces net freedom if there are no protections and countermeasures. This is all very consistent with a free market ideology, although some do not see it that way.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  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.
  - zaarn 9y ago
    Corporations have incentives to maximize short-term profits at the sacrifice of environmental resources and common decency (dump the chemical waste in the river and pay your employees the lowest possible wage). This obviously means the company will quickly run out of resources and employees but depending on the severity of the deployed sacrifice, this can take decades, a time span that corporations have shown on several occasions to not care about.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      My point was, make the river a private resource worth money to some organization or someone, and they will fight that corporation where it matters. Counter-balancing incentives work best, and we have already seen this kind of system work better than regulations.
      - zaarn 9y ago
        As a public utility, the river is worth money to the government. If it goes to waste, less people will be able to use it to make money, which leads to less taxes. Any agency brought up to protect the environment has per it's mission an incentive to protect the environment and doesn't suffer the problems of a corporation, namely limited funding. A government agency doesn't need to make profit to receive lots of funding if it's important enough.
  - hliyan 9y ago
    Unfortunately, assigning property rights to breathable air is going to be problematic.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
- BigTex420 9y ago
  I think Adam Smith's invisible hand develops a bit of Parkinsons when it comes to issues like the environment. I agree with your sentiment but I also fall prey to cynicism a little too easily. If there is one thing I've learned about the markets, it's this: Things move much more quickly or much more slowly than anyone ever expects.
- dspillett 9y ago
  The problem with "as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits" is that while capitalist idealists believe the market is capable of long term thinking required for this to work, it very much isn't and probably never has been. There are many environmentally damaging actions that offer short-to-medium term gain, and many of the changes necessary for long term gain have costs in the short term so are not attractive to the short/medium term thinkers. The problem isn't even constrained to issues that will come to a head after our lifespans. There are many issues that are going to start biting hard in our lifetime, but to "the market" even that is long term: companies are thinking about profits/costs over the next five or ten years and individuals are thinking about maximising what they can get out of their current company in the next year or two before they move on. Heck, many (both companies and individuals) are just thinking about how they will maximise (or in some cases, simply survive) the next quarter and anything else is too far in the future.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  Markets are a powerful tool that have been used to solve environmental problems cheaply and effectively before. Unfortunately there's so much propaganda that effectively argues that corporations should be allowed to do anything they want and it'll all work out for the best that the whole thing has been tainted.
- icelancer 9y ago
  You're just describing negative externalities and the tragedy of the commons issues, well explored in economics. It also has little to do with the limited lifespans and more to do with the minimal negative impact any one person has on the environment, but with great gains that can be realized by not caring (hence, tragedy of the commons issue).
- twsted 9y ago
  Very well said. Besides that I think that enterprises in some cases "dilute" ethics of individual beings.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ianai 9y ago
  Adam Smith also said the wealth of nations depended on the economic empowerment of its populace. Policies and regulations meant to better the citizens and not the corporations add the most to the wealth of the nation. Quote:”What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” And:“[The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity…they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.” https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/ https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/
  - da_chicken 9y ago
    That second one is a bit... unclear. I think it's the 18th century grammar and its propensity for a dozen clauses. However, it seems to contradict the generally held belief that the poor have a much higher marginal propensity to consume than the rich do.
    - ianai 9y ago
      No, he’s saying exactly that they (the non-rich) have both a higher marginal propensity to consume and thus the wealth of a nation grows much faster with their income growth. But undoubtedly, he nestled it in crazy grammar.
      - da_chicken 9y ago
        I'll take your word for it. I keep getting turned around in the middle!
        ianai 9y ago
        He’s using the word “they” confusingly there. It’s clear from the rest of the book that he means the wealth of nations follows the wealth of the non-rich.
- scotty79 9y ago
  > as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits That's the core mistake. It's often very profitable to damage the market.
- crimsonalucard 9y ago
  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.
- fsloth 9y ago
  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.
- da_chicken 9y ago
  It's not so much that humans have limited lifespans, it's just that corporations have profit incentives to offload costs. Treating toxic byproducts is massively more expensive than dumping them in the wilderness, and if management doesn't live near the dumping ground they're less likely to care about the costs. There's even a name for this type of behavior: negative cost externalization. There are even situations of negative externality[1] where the value of the externalized costs exceeds the profit gained so that the net productivity to the nation is negative. Since the company never need pay those costs and they're applied to society as a whole, however, the company is still motivated to do it. I wonder what Adam Smith would have said about the tragedy of the commons. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative
pavlov 9y ago
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" and that unrestricted American entrepreneurial spirit of the 1950s.
- stordoff 9y ago
  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)?
  - pavlov 9y ago
    Recourse after the fact will move some amount of dollars from one bank account to another, but it won't restore destroyed environments and ruined health. Life is hard to replace, money isn't.
  - awful 9y ago
    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.
  - greedo 9y ago
    Legal recourse for a small homeowner against a large corporation is/was not a likely solution. BigCo has so many lawyers just for this type of contingency, and the homeowner lacks the financial resources to fight. Erin Brockovich was a real person, but her story was made into a movie because it was so rare.
- RamshackleJ 9y ago
katastic 9y ago
This same EPA? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/us/navajo-nation-sues-epa-in-poisoning-of-a-colorado-river.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/us/navajo-nation-sues-epa... Don't get me wrong, I think the EPA is a net gain. But let's not pretend they're prefect simply because their mission is good.
cimmanom 9y ago
That's without even showing the Cuyahoga river burning, the oil slicks and dead animals in Newtown Creek, or any superfund sites.
- jhbadger 9y ago
  Yeah, I was really expecting either Cuyahoga or the infamous "Valley of the Drums" with leaking barrels of toxic waste http://bullittcountyhistory.org/bchistory/valleydrum.html http://bullittcountyhistory.org/bchistory/valleydrum.html
simula67 9y ago
After EPA : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Animas_River_spill_2015-08-06.JPG/1280px-Animas_River_spill_2015-08-06.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/An...
- titzer 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_water_spill 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.
  - eadmund 9y ago
    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.
    - titzer 9y ago
      Well, no. The plan with capturing and concentrating the waste is to then treat said waste and dispose of it properly so that it doesn't enter the ecosystem at all. Dispersing it slowly over time is like slow death: it all accumulates eventually, since arsenic, lead, and other toxins don't just evaporate into nothingness.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- stordoff 9y ago
  I don't think it's fair to equate accidents with the deliberate dumping of pollutants, especially when the accident partially stems from damage caused prior to the EPA.
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
I've never really understood why conservatives are so reluctant to look after their environment, after all they get to live in it as well.
- burfog 9y ago
  They aren't reluctant, but you have to speak their language. You may be eager to see a government agency placing limits on businesses, but that won't go over well at all. A better approach is to speak in terms of paying for what you damage. The economy matters, and you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet... but you pay for anything you break. So you end up charging a price, preferably to be paid to those who are affected, and the market responds by cutting pollution. It's almost like fine or cap-and-trade, but without the arbitrary limit that would cause offense. The result may even be better, since you won't always end up exactly at the limit. Tainting and spoiling are usually bad to the conservative mindset, but watch out for property rights. You get to mess up your own stuff. If you bought it and you own it, you can ruin it. Arguing for restrictions that infringe on a person's property won't get you very far at all.
  - cimmanom 9y ago
    But what affects just one's own property vs affecting others? Can I dump toxic waste on my own land? What happens when 10 years later it starts leaching into the soil and poisoning nearby streams and farms? What about the animals who eat on my land and then run back into the forest where they get shot for someone else's dinner, and that someone else ends up consuming elevated levels of heavy metals? What about the person who buys the land from me? Do I have to disclose the presence of the waste to them?
    - LyndsySimon 9y ago
      > Can I dump toxic waste on my own land? Sure, it's your land. > What happens when 10 years later it starts leaching into the soil and poisoning nearby streams and farms? Those impacted landowners now have a tort claim against you, which they should pursue. > What about the animals who eat on my land and then run back into the forest where they get shot for someone else's dinner, and that someone else ends up consuming elevated levels of heavy metals? They now have a tort claim against you, which they should pursue. > What about the person who buys the land from me? Do I have to disclose the presence of the waste to them? Yes, you should. If you don't, the purchaser now has a tort claim against you, which they should pursue. --- I know I'm being a bit trite with the above, but I mean no offense. The difference here is one of strategy, not base ideas. I (and other libertarians) believe that people who harm others through their action should be responsible for that harm. Proponents of the EPA believe that people should be limited by government regulation to a minimal level of harm. I'll also grant that, prior to the EPA, the tort system in the US was ineffective at resolving these issues. I don't believe that was a problem with the process itself; it was (and remains) a problem with the courts.
_red 9y ago
This is sort of a contentless post. Certainly the EPA performs a valid role, however that is not to say that any attempts to constrain its increasing creep of scope and overreach of power is automatically bad. Is it possible to find pictures from the late 60s showing pristine beautiful nature shots? Is it possible to find pictures from late 60s showing clean and tidy small town streets? Is it possible to find pictures from 2018 showing residents holding dirty water (ie. Flint, Michigan)? Is it possible to find pictures from 2018 of dirty filthy slums? Therefore, whats really the message? Let me guess....someone wants more money for their budget?
- titzer 9y ago
  How about the same money as last year (not a 25% cut): https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/51780/title/Proposed-Federal-Budget-Slashes-Funds-to-EPA--CDC/ https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/51780...
- Tepix 9y ago
  Are we on a sustainable path? Should the EPA get more money or less? Right now they are getting a 25% cut. The reduction in regulations will help big corporations, it may even create a few jobs, but it's not in the best interest of the general public, including future generations.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    > Are we on a sustainable path? Should the EPA get more money or less? Right now they are getting a 25% cut. From my perspective, everything in government should get less money. It's not so much a statement against the EPA as it is a statement that the federal government in particular is an order of magnitude too large and powerful. > it's not in the best interest of the general public, including future generations. I get where you're coming from, and sympathize with your position - but you've not supported this statement. How would cutting the EPA budget hurt us long-term? Can those effects be mitigated through other, less costly policies?
Tepix 9y ago
The original quote by Alanis Obomsawin, an Abenaki from the Odanak reserve, was about Canada: "Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."
singularity2001 9y ago
notice all the beautiful yellow flowers next to the horse. the good times before monsanto, bayer et al
whiddershins 9y ago
Please link to at least the popular science article which has more than three photos.
kerrsclyde 9y ago
The next battle is plastic. Consumers and corporations both love the convenience but we cannot go on producing endless steams of virtually unrecyclable, non biodegradable waste from a finite resource. Difficulty mixed with opportunity.
DanielBMarkham 9y ago
It's important to tell a balanced story. Parts of America was like this. Most of it was not. Civil suits failed to curb industrial emissions in built-up areas, which then spilled over everywhere else. The EPA was a godsend. I didn't understand the problem until the first time I visited L.A. Wow, what a mess. The air was so thick. It was disgusting. It's amazing the progress we have made. But the EPA, like so many other agencies (I'm looking at you, TSA) is an agency without a limiting factor. You come up with a devil, you pass a bunch of rules, then you spend the next few years issuing press releases about how you're saving the world. What's happened to American politics in many areas is that there are no feedback loops. When I look at the smog in LA back in the day and how the skies look now? That's a feedback loop. My government is doing something I want them to do. But when they talk about parts per billion versus parts per trillion? It's not evidently clear to me as a voter that we're not just continuing to expand our empire, just like the rest of the agencies. I love what the EPA has done and I support them. But without some kind of limiting feedback loop my support really doesn't mean much. It's just a platitude. I don't support any agency that just runs off on their own taking more and more control over things for reasons I don't understand (or reasons I do understand but disagree with.) So sure, EPA yay! So what the hell does that actually mean? ADD: No matter what the group, big corporate governance groups, local town councils, Non-profit boards, or federal agencies, political groups exist for political reasons. We may laud their goals and love some of the things they've done, but when you are chartered because politics, and you get funding because politics, and people love or hate you because politics -- your primary concern is political. That's not a knock on anybody, that's just the logic of how these things work.
- _red 9y ago
  Thank you for making an eloquent and nuanced post. When it comes to things like "the environment" people lapse into simple morality tales and paint the world as all black / white.
- iainmerrick 9y ago
  I think the feedback loop is industry, who will continue to come up with new processes, materials, chemicals etc, which will improve our lives in some way, at some cost to the environment. The EPA can't stand still, it needs to keep pace with the industries it oversees. You're right of course that industry isn't all bad; we just need the right balance. As long as the EPA's budget isn't expanding out of control, they're probably not simply empire-building.
nanis 9y ago
The direction of causality presumed in the title is mixed up. The EPA did not materialize in a vacuum. It came about in a context of increased concern about pollution which had exceeded tolerable levels AND the U.S. had grown to the point where the country as a whole was wealthy enough to care about such things. Because enough people wanted less pollution, the politicians did something. What they did was not necessarily the "best" thing. The title of the post should have been "What America looked like before the enough Americans began caring for the environment, in photos". PS: I grew up in a really polluted city.
pandler 9y ago
If you follow some links, you can find the whole collection (15000 images!): Documentation project overview: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542493 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542493 Archive contents: https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f.parentNaId=542493&f.level=item&sort=naIdSort%20asc https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f.parentNaId=54249... Link to the original PopSci article: https://www.popsci.com/america-before-epa-photos https://www.popsci.com/america-before-epa-photos Traveling outside the US (been moving around for almost 5 years now) has opened my eyes to the value of some of the consumer/environmental/etc protection/safety agencies/laws in the US that I didn't appreciate before. Some examples not necessarily related to the EPA: - Auto emissions regulations (or lack thereof) - Waste disposal (e.g. burning trash on the side of the road or dumping trash in public places) - Worksite safety (ever see a worker on a commercial build site wearing flip-flops two stories up on a rickety wood scaffold held together by twine, welding with no protective gear?) - Building codes, both for safety and accessibility - Marketing spam (depending on location, I'll get a handful of marketing sms a day - I have a newfound appreciation for CAN-SPAM[1]) You can argue that certain regulations go too far or maybe they don't go far enough, and those are important question to ask. However, and this photo-documentary project underlines this, I've personally come to the conclusion that the importance of environmental regulations can't be understated. It affects the lives of literally everyone, in a "the air I breathe" and "the water I drink" and "the food I eat" and "the space I occupy" kind of way. [1] https://www.fcc.gov/general/can-spam https://www.fcc.gov/general/can-spam
- shrx 9y ago
  Thanks for digging up the links, really awesome collection of photos.
arxpoetica 9y ago
Living in Vietnam like my family does, I think about this frequently. Asian countries suffer from some of these same industrial problems that the West suffered from a generation ago. It isn't clear to me if these are problems that we've collectively just offshored to more developing nations, but there does seem to be a pattern as (Tiger in the modern case) economies industrialize and reach a certain hard-working xenith.
zhyder 9y ago
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 bigger social safety net with universal basic healthcare, etc. But I can understand conservative opposition to that; at least those don't produce tragedies of the commons. (They arguably do to a lesser extent: if people's basic needs are met, they're less likely to resort to crime to fulfill them. And a greater rate of crime is a tragedy for all; ask anyone who's paid a premium to live in a "safe" neighborhood.)
- audunw 9y ago
  I think the answer to this paradox is that most conservatives aren't really all that into small/limited government. It's just a phrase they use to sell their policies to voters. What they're actually trying to implement is crony capitalism, which is a consequence of their dependence on money to get elected. Democrats have the same problem by the way, it just manifests in different paradoxes (or "lies" if you want to be more direct)
  - Strang 9y ago
    Do I understand you correctly, that you believe that most voters in the US have been duped into their beliefs by bad-faith argument concealing the "true" agenda?
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  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?”
  - Anon1096 9y ago
    Nixon was barely a conservative. He gets a bad rap due to Watergate but really he was one of the most liberal Republicans elected to the presidency.
rufusroflpunch 9y ago
I realize that HN generally skews left politically, but this is literally nothing more than a puff piece. There's nothing of value here.
- gpvos 9y ago
  There may be no hard data here, but a picture can say more than a thousand words.
- hagbarth 9y ago
  Wait, what makes the EPA a left thing? It was proposed by Richard Nixon.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    It has certainly been politicized, by both sides. The Democrats have used it as a tool to regulate industry to accomplish political aims, and the Republicans have used it as a symbolic scapegoat of the Democrats. "The EPA" !== "environmental protection". It's a government agency, with all the baggage that goes along with it. One can be opposed to the very existence of the EPA while still being strongly supportive if its nominal mission.
ThomPete 9y ago
This is not because of EPA but because of humans who have more prosperity and start caring and having the political power to care about their environment. The EPA is an expression of that and for a while when there were things that were objectively problematic in the USA it was a great organization. Today I am not so sure as I think it's been too politicized. There is an interesting debate about it here: https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/climate-change-epa-has-gone-overboard https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/climate-change...
awful 9y ago
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.
- bsenftner 9y ago
  I live in Van Nuys, CA, where the aerospace industry used to have manufacturing. Three blocks from me is the "great little bike path" that stretches the length of the valley. Guess what? That bike path is a paved over Superfund site. All of Van Nuys has toxic earth 6" to 10" down. I refuse to eat any fruit or vegetables grown in the area, while everyone around me thinks I'm being paranoid.
- e40 9y ago
  I was so disappointed to see all the words spent on the EPA above this comment. This is the most important comment. This is what humans do when they are unfettered from regulation and enforcement. Yes, the EPA does enforcement. A long-time friend works there in that division. The work is endless.
kochb 9y ago
Hey all, we need to go meta for a sec and talk about why this article doesn't belong here, and how culturally this is a step in the wrong direction for HN. First off, this is blogspam, the original Popular Science article is a bit better. There's a reason blogspam is discouraged by the guidelines. More importantly, this is a particularly pernicious blogspam because the selected photos (atlas, burning boat, water glass) mostly illustrate problems that have comparables right now. It excludes the smog and coal burning illustrated in Popular Science that do a better job at illustrating both pollution and the EPA's achievements. These problems make this article a poor fit for Hacker News. I think we should be all sad to see such an intellectually empty article ranked this highly.
- noxToken 9y ago
  Glad to know that I'm not the only one that felt this way. 4 copied images and a few lines of text that add nothing to the discussion of the original article. I even refreshed the page, because I thought that I was missing something. In terms of text, the original article does not have much either, but at least you're treated to about 30 or so images. It actually gives the reader a glimpse of parts of the US pre-EPA.
- sutterbomb 9y ago
  I understand and agree with preferring the source article for the main discussion topic instead of the blog pointer. But I also strongly disagree with your categorization of this particular site/article as spam. Kottke.org has been running for over twenty years as an independent blog and a source of joy and happiness for its readers. Jason consistently points to amazing things all over the web and often adds insightful, poignant or funny commentary to boot.
  - kochb 9y ago
    I hate to diss kottke also, but this specific article is the textbook definition of blogspam, and we shouldn’t excuse low quality in deference to ethos. I left out some of the other issues this has, like political advocacy over content.
- 9y ago

228 points by AJRF 9y ago

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 their lifespans (or, in some cases, beyond their immediate offsprings' lifespans). That is why I believe that Adam Smith's invisible hand will fail to help the environment...

andrewclunn 9y ago
Even most libertarians recognize that in situations where the very physical nature of something (like air) means that pollution won't stay where it was created, it's an unavoidable tragedy of the commons. Free markets are much better at avoiding such situations in most circumstances, but when the tragedy of the commons is inescapable, regulation is the only weapon we have. Now issues with the current form of the EPA may arise, but the notion of removing it with nothing to fill the void doesn't even fly with my Any Rand loving self.
jeroldmcfiggen 9y ago
The problem is the modern 'corporation'. First govermnent allows anonymous structures like this that are free to pursue maximum profitability with minumum legal responsibility for the individuals behind this structure. Then afterwards it needs to regulate that which it allowed in the first place.
filleokus 9y ago
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 their own profit and not to protect the "market". The only circumstance under which I expect the free market to freely solve any environmental issues is if the consumer demands more (truly) environmentally friendly products and services, moving the demand and hence the profit from polluting products.
- _red 9y ago
  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 result in a lawsuit. It is really the very existence of the legal-fiction of "public land" (ie. land that everyone owns), which gives rise to many of the real environmental abuses. *typo
  - titzer 9y ago
    Well, American Indians and probably most of the indigenous peoples of the Earth would thoroughly and fundamentally disagree that the invented concept is "public land", but rather "private land". In a world where corporations buy land, pillage all of its natural resources, then sell off a smoking crater, the loser is always the environment, as corporations and people downcycle real estate constantly, extracting their profits, destroying what was there before, dodging externalities, and then often defrauding the next investor. Look what was there before and what is left over after the whole cycle. It's shit. You should take a look at the forests of New Zealand and the movement to make logging on public lands illegal.
    - golergka 9y ago
      If you're talking about the pre-colonization state of these cultures, they would disagree with a lot of concepts we use now. For example, zero and negative numbers. Does it mean that zero and negative numbers are morally bankrupt?
      - titzer 9y ago
        The universe is amoral and mathematics doubly so, but the OP was talking about how the "invented concept" of public land gives rise to this tragedy of the commons. I am directly disagreeing in that A.) public land is the invented concept (it isn't, private land is) B.) public land is where the tragedy of the commons occurs (it isn't always, as tragedy happens on private lands, perhaps moreso). I can give more examples of B.) where corporations visit environmental destruction on lands they own (e.g. gold mines) and then sell off the leftover, ruined real estate, having still profited handsomely in the end.
lend000 9y ago
A society isn't free (and neither are its markets) if there isn't a strong rule of law preventing aggression. Polluting non-localized/public resources aggresses against others and therefore reduces net freedom if there are no protections and countermeasures. This is all very consistent with a free market ideology, although some do not see it that way.
ekianjo 9y ago
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.
- zaarn 9y ago
  Corporations have incentives to maximize short-term profits at the sacrifice of environmental resources and common decency (dump the chemical waste in the river and pay your employees the lowest possible wage). This obviously means the company will quickly run out of resources and employees but depending on the severity of the deployed sacrifice, this can take decades, a time span that corporations have shown on several occasions to not care about.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    My point was, make the river a private resource worth money to some organization or someone, and they will fight that corporation where it matters. Counter-balancing incentives work best, and we have already seen this kind of system work better than regulations.
    - zaarn 9y ago
      As a public utility, the river is worth money to the government. If it goes to waste, less people will be able to use it to make money, which leads to less taxes. Any agency brought up to protect the environment has per it's mission an incentive to protect the environment and doesn't suffer the problems of a corporation, namely limited funding. A government agency doesn't need to make profit to receive lots of funding if it's important enough.
- hliyan 9y ago
  Unfortunately, assigning property rights to breathable air is going to be problematic.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
BigTex420 9y ago
I think Adam Smith's invisible hand develops a bit of Parkinsons when it comes to issues like the environment. I agree with your sentiment but I also fall prey to cynicism a little too easily. If there is one thing I've learned about the markets, it's this: Things move much more quickly or much more slowly than anyone ever expects.
dspillett 9y ago
The problem with "as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits" is that while capitalist idealists believe the market is capable of long term thinking required for this to work, it very much isn't and probably never has been. There are many environmentally damaging actions that offer short-to-medium term gain, and many of the changes necessary for long term gain have costs in the short term so are not attractive to the short/medium term thinkers. The problem isn't even constrained to issues that will come to a head after our lifespans. There are many issues that are going to start biting hard in our lifetime, but to "the market" even that is long term: companies are thinking about profits/costs over the next five or ten years and individuals are thinking about maximising what they can get out of their current company in the next year or two before they move on. Heck, many (both companies and individuals) are just thinking about how they will maximise (or in some cases, simply survive) the next quarter and anything else is too far in the future.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
Markets are a powerful tool that have been used to solve environmental problems cheaply and effectively before. Unfortunately there's so much propaganda that effectively argues that corporations should be allowed to do anything they want and it'll all work out for the best that the whole thing has been tainted.
icelancer 9y ago
You're just describing negative externalities and the tragedy of the commons issues, well explored in economics. It also has little to do with the limited lifespans and more to do with the minimal negative impact any one person has on the environment, but with great gains that can be realized by not caring (hence, tragedy of the commons issue).
twsted 9y ago
Very well said. Besides that I think that enterprises in some cases "dilute" ethics of individual beings.
deleted 9y ago
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ianai 9y ago
Adam Smith also said the wealth of nations depended on the economic empowerment of its populace. Policies and regulations meant to better the citizens and not the corporations add the most to the wealth of the nation. Quote:”What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.” And:“[The rich] consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity…they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.” https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/ https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/
- da_chicken 9y ago
  That second one is a bit... unclear. I think it's the 18th century grammar and its propensity for a dozen clauses. However, it seems to contradict the generally held belief that the poor have a much higher marginal propensity to consume than the rich do.
  - ianai 9y ago
    No, he’s saying exactly that they (the non-rich) have both a higher marginal propensity to consume and thus the wealth of a nation grows much faster with their income growth. But undoubtedly, he nestled it in crazy grammar.
    - da_chicken 9y ago
      I'll take your word for it. I keep getting turned around in the middle!
      - ianai 9y ago
        He’s using the word “they” confusingly there. It’s clear from the rest of the book that he means the wealth of nations follows the wealth of the non-rich.
scotty79 9y ago
> as anything that hurts the market will hurt profits That's the core mistake. It's often very profitable to damage the market.
crimsonalucard 9y ago
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.
fsloth 9y ago
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.
da_chicken 9y ago
It's not so much that humans have limited lifespans, it's just that corporations have profit incentives to offload costs. Treating toxic byproducts is massively more expensive than dumping them in the wilderness, and if management doesn't live near the dumping ground they're less likely to care about the costs. There's even a name for this type of behavior: negative cost externalization. There are even situations of negative externality[1] where the value of the externalized costs exceeds the profit gained so that the net productivity to the nation is negative. Since the company never need pay those costs and they're applied to society as a whole, however, the company is still motivated to do it. I wonder what Adam Smith would have said about the tragedy of the commons. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Negative

pavlov 9y ago

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" and that unrestricted American entrepreneurial spirit of the 1950s.

stordoff 9y ago
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)?
- pavlov 9y ago
  Recourse after the fact will move some amount of dollars from one bank account to another, but it won't restore destroyed environments and ruined health. Life is hard to replace, money isn't.
- awful 9y ago
  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.
- greedo 9y ago
  Legal recourse for a small homeowner against a large corporation is/was not a likely solution. BigCo has so many lawyers just for this type of contingency, and the homeowner lacks the financial resources to fight. Erin Brockovich was a real person, but her story was made into a movie because it was so rare.
RamshackleJ 9y ago

katastic 9y ago

This same EPA? https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/us/navajo-nation-sues-epa-in-poisoning-of-a-colorado-river.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/us/navajo-nation-sues-epa... Don't get me wrong, I think the EPA is a net gain. But let's not pretend they're prefect simply because their mission is good.

cimmanom 9y ago

That's without even showing the Cuyahoga river burning, the oil slicks and dead animals in Newtown Creek, or any superfund sites.

jhbadger 9y ago
Yeah, I was really expecting either Cuyahoga or the infamous "Valley of the Drums" with leaking barrels of toxic waste http://bullittcountyhistory.org/bchistory/valleydrum.html http://bullittcountyhistory.org/bchistory/valleydrum.html

simula67 9y ago

After EPA : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Animas_River_spill_2015-08-06.JPG/1280px-Animas_River_spill_2015-08-06.JPG https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/An...

titzer 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Gold_King_Mine_waste_water_spill 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.
- eadmund 9y ago
  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.
  - titzer 9y ago
    Well, no. The plan with capturing and concentrating the waste is to then treat said waste and dispose of it properly so that it doesn't enter the ecosystem at all. Dispersing it slowly over time is like slow death: it all accumulates eventually, since arsenic, lead, and other toxins don't just evaporate into nothingness.
deleted 9y ago
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stordoff 9y ago
I don't think it's fair to equate accidents with the deliberate dumping of pollutants, especially when the accident partially stems from damage caused prior to the EPA.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago

I've never really understood why conservatives are so reluctant to look after their environment, after all they get to live in it as well.

burfog 9y ago
They aren't reluctant, but you have to speak their language. You may be eager to see a government agency placing limits on businesses, but that won't go over well at all. A better approach is to speak in terms of paying for what you damage. The economy matters, and you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet... but you pay for anything you break. So you end up charging a price, preferably to be paid to those who are affected, and the market responds by cutting pollution. It's almost like fine or cap-and-trade, but without the arbitrary limit that would cause offense. The result may even be better, since you won't always end up exactly at the limit. Tainting and spoiling are usually bad to the conservative mindset, but watch out for property rights. You get to mess up your own stuff. If you bought it and you own it, you can ruin it. Arguing for restrictions that infringe on a person's property won't get you very far at all.
- cimmanom 9y ago
  But what affects just one's own property vs affecting others? Can I dump toxic waste on my own land? What happens when 10 years later it starts leaching into the soil and poisoning nearby streams and farms? What about the animals who eat on my land and then run back into the forest where they get shot for someone else's dinner, and that someone else ends up consuming elevated levels of heavy metals? What about the person who buys the land from me? Do I have to disclose the presence of the waste to them?
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    > Can I dump toxic waste on my own land? Sure, it's your land. > What happens when 10 years later it starts leaching into the soil and poisoning nearby streams and farms? Those impacted landowners now have a tort claim against you, which they should pursue. > What about the animals who eat on my land and then run back into the forest where they get shot for someone else's dinner, and that someone else ends up consuming elevated levels of heavy metals? They now have a tort claim against you, which they should pursue. > What about the person who buys the land from me? Do I have to disclose the presence of the waste to them? Yes, you should. If you don't, the purchaser now has a tort claim against you, which they should pursue. --- I know I'm being a bit trite with the above, but I mean no offense. The difference here is one of strategy, not base ideas. I (and other libertarians) believe that people who harm others through their action should be responsible for that harm. Proponents of the EPA believe that people should be limited by government regulation to a minimal level of harm. I'll also grant that, prior to the EPA, the tort system in the US was ineffective at resolving these issues. I don't believe that was a problem with the process itself; it was (and remains) a problem with the courts.

_red 9y ago

This is sort of a contentless post. Certainly the EPA performs a valid role, however that is not to say that any attempts to constrain its increasing creep of scope and overreach of power is automatically bad. Is it possible to find pictures from the late 60s showing pristine beautiful nature shots? Is it possible to find pictures from late 60s showing clean and tidy small town streets? Is it possible to find pictures from 2018 showing residents holding dirty water (ie. Flint, Michigan)? Is it possible to find pictures from 2018 of dirty filthy slums? Therefore, whats really the message? Let me guess....someone wants more money for their budget?

titzer 9y ago
How about the same money as last year (not a 25% cut): https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/51780/title/Proposed-Federal-Budget-Slashes-Funds-to-EPA--CDC/ https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/51780...
Tepix 9y ago
Are we on a sustainable path? Should the EPA get more money or less? Right now they are getting a 25% cut. The reduction in regulations will help big corporations, it may even create a few jobs, but it's not in the best interest of the general public, including future generations.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  > Are we on a sustainable path? Should the EPA get more money or less? Right now they are getting a 25% cut. From my perspective, everything in government should get less money. It's not so much a statement against the EPA as it is a statement that the federal government in particular is an order of magnitude too large and powerful. > it's not in the best interest of the general public, including future generations. I get where you're coming from, and sympathize with your position - but you've not supported this statement. How would cutting the EPA budget hurt us long-term? Can those effects be mitigated through other, less costly policies?

Tepix 9y ago

The original quote by Alanis Obomsawin, an Abenaki from the Odanak reserve, was about Canada: "Canada, the most affluent of countries, operates on a depletion economy which leaves destruction in its wake. Your people are driven by a terrible sense of deficiency. When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money."

singularity2001 9y ago

notice all the beautiful yellow flowers next to the horse. the good times before monsanto, bayer et al

whiddershins 9y ago

Please link to at least the popular science article which has more than three photos.

kerrsclyde 9y ago

The next battle is plastic. Consumers and corporations both love the convenience but we cannot go on producing endless steams of virtually unrecyclable, non biodegradable waste from a finite resource. Difficulty mixed with opportunity.

DanielBMarkham 9y ago

It's important to tell a balanced story. Parts of America was like this. Most of it was not. Civil suits failed to curb industrial emissions in built-up areas, which then spilled over everywhere else. The EPA was a godsend. I didn't understand the problem until the first time I visited L.A. Wow, what a mess. The air was so thick. It was disgusting. It's amazing the progress we have made. But the EPA, like so many other agencies (I'm looking at you, TSA) is an agency without a limiting factor. You come up with a devil, you pass a bunch of rules, then you spend the next few years issuing press releases about how you're saving the world. What's happened to American politics in many areas is that there are no feedback loops. When I look at the smog in LA back in the day and how the skies look now? That's a feedback loop. My government is doing something I want them to do. But when they talk about parts per billion versus parts per trillion? It's not evidently clear to me as a voter that we're not just continuing to expand our empire, just like the rest of the agencies. I love what the EPA has done and I support them. But without some kind of limiting feedback loop my support really doesn't mean much. It's just a platitude. I don't support any agency that just runs off on their own taking more and more control over things for reasons I don't understand (or reasons I do understand but disagree with.) So sure, EPA yay! So what the hell does that actually mean? ADD: No matter what the group, big corporate governance groups, local town councils, Non-profit boards, or federal agencies, political groups exist for political reasons. We may laud their goals and love some of the things they've done, but when you are chartered because politics, and you get funding because politics, and people love or hate you because politics -- your primary concern is political. That's not a knock on anybody, that's just the logic of how these things work.

_red 9y ago
Thank you for making an eloquent and nuanced post. When it comes to things like "the environment" people lapse into simple morality tales and paint the world as all black / white.
iainmerrick 9y ago
I think the feedback loop is industry, who will continue to come up with new processes, materials, chemicals etc, which will improve our lives in some way, at some cost to the environment. The EPA can't stand still, it needs to keep pace with the industries it oversees. You're right of course that industry isn't all bad; we just need the right balance. As long as the EPA's budget isn't expanding out of control, they're probably not simply empire-building.

nanis 9y ago

The direction of causality presumed in the title is mixed up. The EPA did not materialize in a vacuum. It came about in a context of increased concern about pollution which had exceeded tolerable levels AND the U.S. had grown to the point where the country as a whole was wealthy enough to care about such things. Because enough people wanted less pollution, the politicians did something. What they did was not necessarily the "best" thing. The title of the post should have been "What America looked like before the enough Americans began caring for the environment, in photos". PS: I grew up in a really polluted city.

pandler 9y ago

If you follow some links, you can find the whole collection (15000 images!): Documentation project overview: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542493 https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542493 Archive contents: https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f.parentNaId=542493&f.level=item&sort=naIdSort%20asc https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f.parentNaId=54249... Link to the original PopSci article: https://www.popsci.com/america-before-epa-photos https://www.popsci.com/america-before-epa-photos Traveling outside the US (been moving around for almost 5 years now) has opened my eyes to the value of some of the consumer/environmental/etc protection/safety agencies/laws in the US that I didn't appreciate before. Some examples not necessarily related to the EPA: - Auto emissions regulations (or lack thereof) - Waste disposal (e.g. burning trash on the side of the road or dumping trash in public places) - Worksite safety (ever see a worker on a commercial build site wearing flip-flops two stories up on a rickety wood scaffold held together by twine, welding with no protective gear?) - Building codes, both for safety and accessibility - Marketing spam (depending on location, I'll get a handful of marketing sms a day - I have a newfound appreciation for CAN-SPAM[1]) You can argue that certain regulations go too far or maybe they don't go far enough, and those are important question to ask. However, and this photo-documentary project underlines this, I've personally come to the conclusion that the importance of environmental regulations can't be understated. It affects the lives of literally everyone, in a "the air I breathe" and "the water I drink" and "the food I eat" and "the space I occupy" kind of way. [1] https://www.fcc.gov/general/can-spam https://www.fcc.gov/general/can-spam

shrx 9y ago
Thanks for digging up the links, really awesome collection of photos.

arxpoetica 9y ago

Living in Vietnam like my family does, I think about this frequently. Asian countries suffer from some of these same industrial problems that the West suffered from a generation ago. It isn't clear to me if these are problems that we've collectively just offshored to more developing nations, but there does seem to be a pattern as (Tiger in the modern case) economies industrialize and reach a certain hard-working xenith.

zhyder 9y ago

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 bigger social safety net with universal basic healthcare, etc. But I can understand conservative opposition to that; at least those don't produce tragedies of the commons. (They arguably do to a lesser extent: if people's basic needs are met, they're less likely to resort to crime to fulfill them. And a greater rate of crime is a tragedy for all; ask anyone who's paid a premium to live in a "safe" neighborhood.)

audunw 9y ago
I think the answer to this paradox is that most conservatives aren't really all that into small/limited government. It's just a phrase they use to sell their policies to voters. What they're actually trying to implement is crony capitalism, which is a consequence of their dependence on money to get elected. Democrats have the same problem by the way, it just manifests in different paradoxes (or "lies" if you want to be more direct)
- Strang 9y ago
  Do I understand you correctly, that you believe that most voters in the US have been duped into their beliefs by bad-faith argument concealing the "true" agenda?
IAmEveryone 9y ago
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?”
- Anon1096 9y ago
  Nixon was barely a conservative. He gets a bad rap due to Watergate but really he was one of the most liberal Republicans elected to the presidency.

rufusroflpunch 9y ago

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

gpvos 9y ago
There may be no hard data here, but a picture can say more than a thousand words.
hagbarth 9y ago
Wait, what makes the EPA a left thing? It was proposed by Richard Nixon.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  It has certainly been politicized, by both sides. The Democrats have used it as a tool to regulate industry to accomplish political aims, and the Republicans have used it as a symbolic scapegoat of the Democrats. "The EPA" !== "environmental protection". It's a government agency, with all the baggage that goes along with it. One can be opposed to the very existence of the EPA while still being strongly supportive if its nominal mission.

ThomPete 9y ago

This is not because of EPA but because of humans who have more prosperity and start caring and having the political power to care about their environment. The EPA is an expression of that and for a while when there were things that were objectively problematic in the USA it was a great organization. Today I am not so sure as I think it's been too politicized. There is an interesting debate about it here: https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/climate-change-epa-has-gone-overboard https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/climate-change...

awful 9y ago

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.

bsenftner 9y ago
I live in Van Nuys, CA, where the aerospace industry used to have manufacturing. Three blocks from me is the "great little bike path" that stretches the length of the valley. Guess what? That bike path is a paved over Superfund site. All of Van Nuys has toxic earth 6" to 10" down. I refuse to eat any fruit or vegetables grown in the area, while everyone around me thinks I'm being paranoid.
e40 9y ago
I was so disappointed to see all the words spent on the EPA above this comment. This is the most important comment. This is what humans do when they are unfettered from regulation and enforcement. Yes, the EPA does enforcement. A long-time friend works there in that division. The work is endless.

kochb 9y ago

Hey all, we need to go meta for a sec and talk about why this article doesn't belong here, and how culturally this is a step in the wrong direction for HN. First off, this is blogspam, the original Popular Science article is a bit better. There's a reason blogspam is discouraged by the guidelines. More importantly, this is a particularly pernicious blogspam because the selected photos (atlas, burning boat, water glass) mostly illustrate problems that have comparables right now. It excludes the smog and coal burning illustrated in Popular Science that do a better job at illustrating both pollution and the EPA's achievements. These problems make this article a poor fit for Hacker News. I think we should be all sad to see such an intellectually empty article ranked this highly.

noxToken 9y ago
Glad to know that I'm not the only one that felt this way. 4 copied images and a few lines of text that add nothing to the discussion of the original article. I even refreshed the page, because I thought that I was missing something. In terms of text, the original article does not have much either, but at least you're treated to about 30 or so images. It actually gives the reader a glimpse of parts of the US pre-EPA.
sutterbomb 9y ago
I understand and agree with preferring the source article for the main discussion topic instead of the blog pointer. But I also strongly disagree with your categorization of this particular site/article as spam. Kottke.org has been running for over twenty years as an independent blog and a source of joy and happiness for its readers. Jason consistently points to amazing things all over the web and often adds insightful, poignant or funny commentary to boot.
- kochb 9y ago
  I hate to diss kottke also, but this specific article is the textbook definition of blogspam, and we shouldn’t excuse low quality in deference to ethos. I left out some of the other issues this has, like political advocacy over content.
9y ago