(00:00:00) I think we have to ask ourselves a question (00:00:03) about all this growing interest in the environment at this (00:00:08) moment. Why why is it happening? What's the reason (00:00:13) for the fact that you find so many of your neighbors now listening to you more than they did before. (00:00:21) I think there's a very simple answer the answer is that the (00:00:24) environmental crisis has not been solved and people know it and they worry and they know that it's been going on for a long time. They also know that for 20 years. We've been trying very hard to solve the problem and everybody has the sense that we have failed and the things are really getting (00:00:47) worse now in that (00:00:49) situation. I think there's only one thing you can do and that is to (00:00:54) stop. And find out why asked the question why (00:01:01) why are we in the trouble that we are in Because unless you (00:01:05) ask that question, you (00:01:08) cannot find the real solution and the fact is we have been trying to solve. The problem we've got for the last 20 years billions of dollars have been spent well over 400 billion dollars have been spent in the 20 years private and public money huge bureaucracies have been established (00:01:35) laws. A whole series of actions (00:01:39) everybody says they want to do it and (00:01:42) yet it has failed. (00:01:44) It is failed in other words. We've been doing something but we've been doing the wrong thing and it's extremely important therefore particularly at this moment to ask the question. Well, what's wrong and see if we can figure out what's right and then do what is right (00:02:04) well, We can get it that (00:02:08) because one of the things that (00:02:10) it's happened successfully (00:02:12) in these 20 years (00:02:14) is that we now know (00:02:16) a lot more about the environment than we did before there are numbers. Now you can ask (00:02:24) how much (00:02:25) sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxides have been emitted year by year in the United States (00:02:32) and we can look at the numbers (00:02:35) and say well what's been accomplished how what has (00:02:39) worked what hasn't worked. Let me give you the (00:02:44) situation and where we have the best information which has to do with air pollution. Now, there is a hole there whole series of Standard air pollutants that are measured the amounts in the air are measured and the amounts emitted into the environment a measured year by year and particularly since 1975. We have pretty good numbers. Well, let me tell you how the numbers run the Standard air pollutants are include dust sulfur dioxide nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. (00:03:23) If you look at the average Improvement (00:03:27) between 1975 and the present in those pollutants you find that that's gone down an average of 18% (00:03:37) Now you might say (00:03:38) well it's the best we can do. It's it's much easier to pollute the environment than to clean it up. So 18% is not too bad. But there are two things that have to be said in the first place when the laws were created in the early 1970s. The goal for air pollution was in ninety percent Improvement in seven years. Obviously we haven't succeeded in doing that. But the other thing that's interesting is it turns out that (00:04:10) it's possible to get real Improvement (00:04:13) because if you look at another air pollutant lead it has gone down since 1975 by 94% (00:04:22) Now that tells you right away. (00:04:24) It's possible to do the wrong thing and it's possible to do the right thing. (00:04:30) And if you look around at the other (00:04:33) pollutants you find that the vast majority of them haven't improved much or have gotten worse. So for example, if you look at water pollution, the US Geological Survey has studied all about 400 River sites all over the country repeatedly making measurements and they got very good statistical answers to the question (00:04:58) has pollution improved (00:05:01) has it gotten worse or has it remained the same and the (00:05:05) statistical answer you get is (00:05:08) that at 90% of the sites there has either been no improvement or it's gotten worse. In other words another failure, (00:05:20) if you look around you discover that there are only a handful literally a (00:05:26) handful of pollutants that have really improved significantly gone down maybe 70 80 90 % and I've listed One LED that's gone down a great deal. (00:05:39) Another one is DDT. If you look around (00:05:43) at fish birds and in people's bodies and mother's milk, you find that DDT is down roughly 80% in this time. The same is true of polychlorinated biphenyls pcbs gone down about the same amount in wildlife and people's bodies. (00:06:05) Another example is strontium-90 (00:06:09) strontium-90 has gone down about 90% since the 1960s. Another example is mercury in the Great Lakes Mercury was up at a point where you fish were really inedible in the 1970s. It's down now about 90% in places like Lake Michigan (00:06:32) here. You have to ask yourself. What what did we do? That was so clever here. (00:06:39) This is a this is the (00:06:41) PHD candidates ideal (00:06:43) situation you have what's called a (00:06:45) bimodal distribution. If you (00:06:47) plot the various pollutants you find that most of them speak up at an improvement of the let's say of 10 to (00:06:56) 20% but then there's a handful of Mount (00:06:59) here where we've really done (00:07:02) well and immediately you (00:07:04) can ask a very profound theoretical question. Let us analyze what we did that didn't work and analyze what we did that And we'll have a new law of the environment and you'll get a PhD and a lot of (00:07:20) credit. Well, I tell you exactly what the law is. When you examine these two sets of data (00:07:28) you come up with what is the (00:07:31) fifth law of the environment? (00:07:34) And the law is this if you (00:07:36) don't put something into the environment it's not there. Because in every case in which there's been this significant (00:07:46) Improvement, it (00:07:47) was done not with elaborate controls not with baghouses not by setting up standards nothing of the sort. There are no emission controls on DDT. It was done very simply by stopping (00:08:06) to produce. The pollutant lead has been taken out of gasoline. (00:08:13) DDT and PCB have been banned Now when DDT was used, how is it used? How is Led You Led was put into the (00:08:23) gasoline and went right through the engine out the exhaust. In other words as the car (00:08:29) drove. It (00:08:30) injected lead into the environment. So there was a means that's the law. (00:08:38) You stop (00:08:39) putting led into the gasoline and it's not in the environment (00:08:44) DDT when it (00:08:45) was used largely used growing cotton, you fill the tank and a spray plane with DDT solution and it would spray over the land and what do you suppose happens to spray when it's put out into the air it goes into the environment. Why don't you stop doing that and it's not (00:09:05) there pcbs. We were using (00:09:08) it in various ways that involved leakage from (00:09:13) electrical equipment. But in some ways it was used at went right into the environment. And again, it was banned. It's not (00:09:21) there Mercury is a very interesting case what happened there was that it was discovered that there were chlor-alkali plants on the Lake Shores that were using mercury in their production process. Al chlorine is made by running an electric current through a solution of salt and Mercury was used to conduct the current well both the Canadian and US government's went to the plants and said listen You'll have to stop using mercury because it's going into the lake (00:09:52) so they stop they did (00:09:53) not stop producing chlorine. They (00:09:56) simply change the technology. (00:09:59) Of chlorine (00:09:59) production, (00:10:01) they introduced a semi permeable (00:10:03) membrane instead of mercury to carry allow the electrical current to go (00:10:10) in other words the way in which these improvements have taken place is by altering the very production process that generated the (00:10:22) pollutant. (00:10:26) In other words you change the way you went you made chlorine you change the way in which you produced cotton (00:10:35) you change the way in which you produce gasoline (00:10:39) so that the real action is not in the environment. The problem is not an environmental problem sure creates an environmental problem, but it originates in (00:10:55) the way you grow cock in the way you produce chlorine. In the way in which you do Agriculture and Industry. (00:11:06) Now what hasn't worked is largely the notion that you (00:11:13) don't change the technology of production. But (00:11:16) instead try to trap the pollutant (00:11:19) before it gets into the environment. That's what you do with a scrubber. That's what you do with the catalytic converter tacked on at the end of the car the problem with the Cars one of the problems is that they produce smog and you try to catch the materials coming up the exhaust in order to do something about that that doesn't work. For example, when the catalytic converters were first introduced by EPA. It was a very detailed analysis of what good they would do and between 1975 and 1987. They were supposed to reduce the emissions of Carbon monoxide by something like 90% (00:12:10) In (00:12:10) fact, they reduce the emissions by about 15% In other words. They do not work now. It's not that the catalytic converter is, you know completely inefficient because a new one will take out 90% of the carbon (00:12:27) monoxide, but the problem is this as long as some carbon monoxide comes out the more people drive the more carbon monoxide there is in the air in other words one of the problems with a control device (00:12:43) because it's never (00:12:44) perfect is that it can be overwhelmed simply by (00:12:48) increased economic activity, which is one of the reasons why people say erroneously that the only way we can deal with pollution is to cut down on economic productivity actually what we're talking about. That works is prevention you prevent the production of the pollutant the emissions then go to 0 and as you know, any number multiplied by zero is zero, so it doesn't (00:13:19) matter. For example, it wouldn't matter how much (00:13:26) trash is produced. Let's (00:13:28) say if none of it is burned and all of it is recycled. (00:13:34) It wouldn't matter. It wouldn't matter in the sense. Let's say of dioxin production. Once you eliminate by prevention, you have freed yourself from from that kind of (00:13:47) constraint. Now, these are simply (00:13:53) recite it for you very quickly (00:13:55) what the data tell us this Is what you have to realize though. See what I've been saying is once the (00:14:04) pollutant is produced. It's too late. (00:14:07) If you have a generator of (00:14:11) pollutants. Car and incinerator the petrochemical plant (00:14:17) trying to control it simply doesn't work. What you have to do is (00:14:23) to prevent the production in the first place. Now what you have to realize is (00:14:28) that all of the laws (00:14:30) in this country. In fact every other country. I know of (00:14:34) that regulate pollution do exactly the wrong thing. They come into play (00:14:40) only after a pollutant has appeared in the environment then EPA starts making measurements figuring out how bad (00:14:49) it is setting (00:14:49) standards litigating Etc, (00:14:52) but then it's too late. It's too late. What you have to do is to prevent (00:14:57) the pollutant from being there in the first place. In other words (00:15:01) our entire regulatory system is headed in the wrong direction. (00:15:07) And that's why the effort to clean up the environment has (00:15:11) totally failed. It's failed (00:15:14) and you have to recognize that (00:15:15) this is not simply, (00:15:17) you know, well we decided to do it but didn't we didn't do it very (00:15:22) well. We did a lot. I mean you go and look at EPA in the huge (00:15:27) amounts of money spent, you know, 400 billion dollars in the last 15 or 20 years is a lot of (00:15:34) money. Literally it has been (00:15:37) wasted. And a lot of the litigation Etc has been wasted as well. (00:15:44) Now, what are the consequences of (00:15:49) let's be very simple about (00:15:51) it. This is a huge social (00:15:53) failure. Society decided to do something did the wrong thing and it failed (00:16:00) and we have to expect (00:16:02) consequences and let me point out some of the consequences (00:16:08) take the simple idea (00:16:11) that what we're (00:16:13) trying to do is (00:16:15) control the level of (00:16:17) pollutants and we set standards (00:16:20) we say certain amount of dioxin is allowed if it doesn't do more than create a lifetime cancer risk of one per million and everybody says, okay. That's the (00:16:32) standard. Now, what does that mean? It means that we legitimize that much exposure to toxic material. Now what do you suppose will (00:16:44) happen if let's say a corporation is told look you've got to put controls on and bring the emissions down to meet this standard and let's say this particular corporation does it right? And they meet the (00:16:57) standard. Do you suppose the next day the board of directors (00:17:00) will call a meeting and say (00:17:02) oh we did this very well. Let's even go further. That never happens what happens therefore when a standard is set is that you legitimize the idea that some pollution some exposure to toxic material is (00:17:21) okay. And there are people who say well we have to suffer that much in order to get the benefits of the industrial and agricultural activity, you know in a way this is a return to the mediaeval standards of morality when people said that you had to suffer and die because of original sin the Black Death (00:17:47) was well, it's to be expected and people have that (00:17:51) attitude toward smog for example (00:17:54) smog is all over the country. Well, you know, it's the Way It Is Well, it's not the way it ought to be And we have to keep that in mind. Now one of the consequences of this idea of setting standards is that you have to figure out well, how do we set a standard? (00:18:14) What's the scale on which we put it in one of the scales is used is the relative (00:18:19) risk. Okay, (00:18:23) you've heard the stories why the amount of dioxin coming out of the Hennepin County plant is doesn't amount to smoking one cigarette every 30 years, you know. Well, of course, I don't know what the connection between trash disposal and cigarette smoking is but set that (00:18:42) aside that's the way the scale is set up. How risky is it? (00:18:50) But, you know, there are risks and risks and you have to ask well, (00:18:56) let's bring the risk down but then that costs money and (00:19:00) so one of the things that's been set up (00:19:03) is a risk-benefit (00:19:04) scale the balance between the risk on the one hand. (00:19:11) And for example, what it would (00:19:13) cost on the other hand to bring the risk down to some acceptable level (00:19:19) and what you have to realize is once Get into this business of standing setting standards. And balancing things out you are making moral ethical political judgments, you are not doing (00:19:35) science. And in (00:19:37) fact, the statistics are used to cover this up. What would happen What would (00:19:43) you've heard about risk benefit? Everybody says, oh it's a great thing, you know, the their environmental organizations in Washington that have half their (00:19:53) staffs working about on one side or the other of this balance. That's a great thing to do. What would happen. If everyone knew that what that meant was that poor people are allowed to be polluted more than rich people. So forget it. Why should anybody be (00:20:13) polluted? You know. (00:20:18) In other words this scientific stuff is used as a way to cover up immoral unethical antisocial actions that would easily be defeated if people were aware of it. (00:20:34) And so it's very important for those of us who have an understanding of this to penetrate through that and and really explain to (00:20:42) people. Well what I've (00:20:45) let me show you let me show you how much this has failed to penetrate so far. I noticed Neil showed me a editorial today in your local newspaper supporting the Clean Air bill. (00:21:00) One of the main provisions of (00:21:01) the bill is this that you can trade the right to pollute that is if a company is polluting more than is (00:21:12) allowed. They can buy that (00:21:15) right from a company that is polluting less. And this is now touted as a matter of fact, I have to tell you the environmental defense fund is very proud (00:21:26) that they suggest that this to mr. Bush and mr. Bush has acknowledged (00:21:32) that he was very pleased to have the cooperation of the environmental defense fund a well-established environmental (00:21:39) organization. Now, what does that trade in pollutants mean? It means the very reverse of prevention, which is the only thing that works. How can you have prevention if you're going to trade pollutants? You've got to produce what you're going to trade. In other words this whole concept in the bill is the inverse of what works (00:22:08) and what you need to know is that pollution prevention is now the (00:22:13) official policy of EPA. That you didn't know that on January 19th on January 19th, 1989 (00:22:23) a statement was (00:22:25) published in the Federal Register called the pollution (00:22:29) prevention policy (00:22:31) statement, which said just about what I told you that once the pollutant is produced. It's too late. We know that it hasn't worked and the only thing we can do now is to prevent. EPA has said it, but they haven't done it. Now that leads us to the (00:22:52) question. Well, what do we do and who doesn't (00:22:56) because we now know what we have to do. We have to (00:22:59) prevent the production of the (00:23:01) pollutant by doing what by choosing how we produce our Goods. We have to decide how to (00:23:11) produce cotton how to (00:23:13) make gasoline (00:23:14) how to produce chlorine if we going to (00:23:17) what kind of cars there ought to be. Otherwise, it's not going to work. Because what we have to realize is most of the (00:23:24) environmental problems were suffering from (00:23:27) come from the introduction after World War II (00:23:30) of new ways of growing food new ways of driving cars new ways of producing power. (00:23:39) And these new ways all introduce new heavy (00:23:44) levels of pollution give you a very simple example. One of the things that's happened is that our our transportation system has been transformed instead of carrying Freight on railroads and people on railroads. We now carry Freight by (00:23:59) truck and people in cars will take just (00:24:03) simple thing about truck (00:24:06) a truck uses four times more (00:24:08) fuel to carry a ton mile than a railroad. That means every time you carry something by truck. It means (00:24:16) four times more pollution (00:24:18) than we had when it was carried by the (00:24:21) railroad. Now people say well that's our fault. We're the ones are take big (00:24:30) cars is another good example, big cars were introduced after World War II we're told we (00:24:36) wanted they were introduced (00:24:40) and because the cars were big they had to have powerful engines the way you get a powerful engine is to raise the compression in the cylinder the compression ratio and the laws of physics tell us that when you do that, it runs hotter and the laws of chemistry tell us when it (00:24:56) runs hot you get more (00:24:58) chemical reaction and the rose as a result the nitrogen in the air and the oxygen in the air in the cylinder interact to produce nitrogen (00:25:08) oxide. And the result of building these heavy (00:25:12) cars after World War Two was that nitrogen oxide was emitted from the tailpipe of the cars, which wasn't true before the result smog because when nitrogen oxide gets out of the tailpipe and is hit by sunlight, it becomes very reactive and that triggers the smog (00:25:32) reaction and I can tell you (00:25:34) before World War II there was no smog (00:25:38) and I remember driving a car (00:25:40) before World War II and I can tell you if we were all driving Model A Ford's now there would be no smog because they didn't produce nitrogen oxide. (00:25:51) In other words, we introduced a new way of doing a useful thing just (00:25:57) driving the car (00:25:59) and we introduced it in a way that created small or take (00:26:04) agriculture before World War II there was no use of inorganic nitrogen (00:26:11) fertilizer none. This is all after World War Two. And as a result, there (00:26:18) wasn't nitrate pollution in groundwater. Would you have plenty of in this particularly in this part of the state as a result of the heavy use of (00:26:28) fertilizer? In other words, we changed agriculture after World War (00:26:33) II introducing chemical fertilizer (00:26:36) introducing (00:26:37) synthetic insecticides and pesticides the various kinds which get into the (00:26:43) environment and now you have carcinogens in food (00:26:48) because they were added as a result of spraying that was not true before World War (00:26:55) Two. These are changes that were made and we have to ask the question. Well who did it and why you'll be told of course (00:27:05) that it's the consumers fault. The (00:27:09) consumer is King we (00:27:11) decide in the marketplace what we want and then people give it to us. (00:27:20) Well, I have a (00:27:21) quick answer for that and it has to do with socks my socks. I wear size 12 socks. (00:27:29) Okay, I go to the store. (00:27:32) I'm King right Zoomer (00:27:35) and I asked size 12 socks, please and they look at me. Oh that's on special order on the Shelf. There is sizes a size which says 10 to 13 now. I want to ask you a question. What consumer demand brought that about? Did somebody come into the store and say listen my feet change size every week. I can't use a single size sign. Not so that's not why it happened. It happened (00:28:05) because some accountant said, you know, we can cut down on the inventory and make a higher profit. Well, he is a less funny why suppose you go to Sears and say I'm an environmentalist. I know that a truck delivered refrigerator has polluted the air more than one that came by railroad. I want a railroad delivered refrigerated (00:28:27) you'll get thrown out. They don't know how it came. In other words, we don't have control who makes the decision. The decision is made not (00:28:40) by the consumer but by the producer and very often, we don't even know that it is happened. (00:28:47) Why does a producer make the decision well in our economic system is a very clear-cut reason (00:28:54) it's known as the bottom line. Best example is what GM did in building big cars. There is a book about the history of John DeLorean before he went into other things. He was a rising executive at GM and there's a book called on a clear day. You can see GM in which he is (00:29:17) quoted as saying that the reason why General Motors (00:29:21) went into big cars was that they realized they made more money on it took 300 dollars more to build a Cadillac than a (00:29:29) Chevrolet, but they could sell the Cadillac. (00:29:33) Of dollars more or is Henry Ford put it many cars make many (00:29:37) prophets. So if we track back now, let's go back to the beginning. We're trying to figure out I said why why is all this happened? Well, the first why (00:29:50) is that we have failed to prevent pollution. And prevention (00:29:58) means (00:30:00) determining how (00:30:02) to produce the goods that you're interested in. Now. I've been telling you we know why those goods are produced (00:30:10) in other words the cause of smog is the interest of Detroit in (00:30:16) making more profit in big cars. (00:30:19) The cause of pollution from agriculture is the interest of (00:30:23) the in the of the petrochemical industry in taking over as much of Agriculture as they can Robert Rhoades wrote a book about a very nice book about the farm said there are some people who call A Farm a way of laundering money for the petrochemical industry. (00:30:47) well What can we do about it? First question is are (00:30:54) there. ways of producing food driving cars generating power (00:31:03) that do not (00:31:04) generate the pollutants that are giving us all the (00:31:06) trouble. Well, let's take a Greek culture. People say well, what's the oh, where's the alternative? This is the modern technology. Where is the alternative and I always have to ask myself. What was I eating before 1950 before World War II and I well remember eating food. And as far as I know it was brought it was produced on farms in very ordinary customary ways in other words. The the way of producing food that prevents pollution. Why not putting the pollutants into it exists? It's called organic (00:31:53) farming. And what it means is farming (00:31:58) without chemicals and people thought possible. It will (00:32:04) starve Etc. Well, some of you may know that about six months ago the USDA put (00:32:10) the steel of approval on it (00:32:12) and Report came up from the National Academy of Sciences sponsored by the USDA looking at 14 Organic Farms big ones all over the country and they were all making a lot of money in producing a lot of food and doing just about as well as any other form. (00:32:30) I have to tell you (00:32:31) that's old old (00:32:32) News 15 years (00:32:34) ago while our center for the biology of natural systems were still in st. Louis. We did a study with 14. No 28 Farms. I don't know where the number 14 came up recently. But anyway, we took 14 Organic Farms. I think a couple of them in southern Minnesota all over the Midwest (00:32:55) big. (00:32:56) Big farms 500 Acres not hippy-dippy organic farmers who know if I insulted anybody. (00:33:06) I (00:33:07) grow tomatoes in in our backyard in Brooklyn with no tractor at any rate. These were big farms with scenery all of you know, whole works and growing the same crops (00:33:20) and we match them with 14 conventional farms (00:33:25) nearby. We even asked the extension agents to get comparably competent managers in matching the Farms. We (00:33:34) followed them for five years. We got their income tax returns their invoices all works (00:33:40) and what we showed after five years was that on (00:33:44) the average The Organic Farms (00:33:46) produced eight and a half percent less yield than the conventional (00:33:51) farms and made (00:33:53) exactly the same amount of money per acre as Conventional Farms because they weren't spending money on chemicals. (00:34:00) And in fact, they were better off because they didn't have to go to the (00:34:03) banker Every Spring (00:34:05) and borrow the money for the (00:34:07) chemicals. (00:34:11) In other words, it can be done. It really can be done. So there is an alternative that prevents (00:34:19) agricultural pollution. (00:34:20) There is an alternative even to smog even with high compression engines in 1974. There's a big study (00:34:29) by done by NSF the National Science Foundation on engines and they pointed out that there's an engine and the stratified charged engine (00:34:40) which is a high compression engine but redesigned in such a way as to (00:34:45) keep the temperature down (00:34:47) that would meet the nitrogen oxide emission standards with no controls. In 1974 the Ford Motor Company had one running. (00:34:58) And the study pointed out that (00:35:00) if it had been adopted (00:35:02) by 1988 smog would have disappeared. Well, they didn't do it. They didn't do it because it would have meant rebuilding their their engine plants and so on the other day, I heard from an automotive be Automotive engineer the idea that General Motors is probably going to introduce the stratified (00:35:25) charged engine, you know, why because they've decided to (00:35:29) build a really big car, you know, something like a Ferrari (00:35:35) and in order to keep the nitrogen oxide levels from going up. They said ah, we'll use a stratified charged engine to overcome the extra high compression in this powerful car. In other words. They were going to use this simply to (00:35:53) maintain the status quo and allow them to build an even bigger car. With bigger profits (00:36:00) action has to be taken despite despite (00:36:05) the corporation's interest in the bottom line. in other words (00:36:14) we have to rely on (00:36:15) ourselves. For action and let me run through a couple of things that I think you've already learned how to do we're all learning how to (00:36:29) do. Let's take for example the whole (00:36:31) question of trash incineration and (00:36:34) recycling. How do we apply the lessons that (00:36:38) we've learned about prevention and controls? (00:36:42) Well, let's ask (00:36:42) ourselves. (00:36:45) Here's the trash. It's born separated. Keep that in mind. You're in the kitchen, right? You empty a can of soup and what you have in your hand is a can. It's not trash to can. Are mayonnaise jar or a beer bottle? And that becomes trash. Only after you (00:37:21) mix it up with everything (00:37:23) else and it (00:37:25) becomes an environmental problem. In other words. (00:37:29) We literally create. the problem (00:37:35) another thing to keep in mind is (00:37:38) that this trash Is a an accompaniment to an economic (00:37:46) good? My favorite example is beer. I drink beer every night with dinner 12 ounces of beer and I call that an (00:37:57) economic good. It comes in a bottle. And I have to have the bottle to get the beer that bottle is an economic (00:38:10) good as long as it delivers the beer, but once (00:38:15) once you're finished with it, it's a problem. Now, I now cause more pollution (00:38:22) by drinking one bottle of beer than I did in 1950 when I drank a bottle of beer. I cause (00:38:28) 40 times more pollution. (00:38:31) Some people say will stop drinking beer. (00:38:34) Well, it's not my fault. I didn't do anything about it. Here's what happened in 1950 every time I had 12 (00:38:43) ounces of beer. I used one-fortieth of a bottle (00:38:47) because each bottle (00:38:48) was returned and took 40 trips before it was destroyed so that the fuel used to make the glass to make the bottle and so on represented a 40th of an environmental of a bottle of environmental impact (00:39:04) now every time I have a bottle of beer, (00:39:08) Yeah, I am committing one beer bottle of pollution because that beer bottle is not reused. (00:39:17) So we have to realize that one of the things that's happened is that we have changed the ratio between economic good. And the trash the pollutant that accompanies it now we didn't do that. They did it because what what brought (00:39:35) about the the the No No, Return bottle (00:39:39) was a change in the industry in the Brewing (00:39:42) industry. It used to be and it certainly was true here while it's still true around here. There are small breweries. There were (00:39:49) thousands and thousands of (00:39:50) breweries in the country. Now, there's a handful and the result is that big centralized breweries and it becomes uneconomic to ship the (00:39:58) bottles back and forth. That's what happened. In other words. It was a transformation in Industry. So one (00:40:05) problem we learn about immediately is (00:40:08) that the nature of the technology of production determines how much trash is accompanying (00:40:16) the good and you know that very well from the whole (00:40:18) Plastics thing, you (00:40:20) know, I well remember when I fight I went to the store to buy a screw It would be picked out of a bin and hand it to me and I put it in my pocket. (00:40:30) Now you go to the store and there's a cardboard (00:40:33) thing with a plastic bubble on it. And that one or two screws (00:40:41) has caused a (00:40:42) great deal of pollution trash. (00:40:44) So that's one thing the second (00:40:45) thing you have to realize is I said was (00:40:49) trash is born separate it becomes it becomes a (00:40:53) pollutant. It becomes a pollutant when you mix everything together (00:40:58) so that the what the (00:40:59) incinerator approach says is (00:41:02) okay. We accept the idea that trash (00:41:06) garbage is going to be produced all mixed together and we're going to control it. We're going to control it by burning it. And of course all that a controlled does is simply move the pollutant from one place to another and as you know, in this case, the incinerator actually (00:41:25) creates pollutants for (00:41:28) example (00:41:29) dioxin. And it will convert some of the metals in the trash into forms that (00:41:37) will Leach out of the Ash and produce a hazardous situation (00:41:43) and some of the stuff will (00:41:44) vaporize such as (00:41:47) mercury. You see think about the (00:41:51) famous Hennepin County incinerator the fact that they got high levels of mercury coming out of the (00:42:00) stack is a simple consequence that they put mercury into it. (00:42:06) If they didn't put mercury into the incinerator. It wouldn't come out. (00:42:12) It's as simple as that and I guess I got to (00:42:14) know the state has discovered that and that they're going to do something about holding back the (00:42:20) batteries. Well as an interesting thing (00:42:22) that comes up (00:42:24) see there's a law the Clean Air Act (00:42:27) says you supposed to use best available control technology and in Spokane that long ago lawyers brought up the point that a good way to have control technology is to not put the pollutant in the first place. For example, keeping the material out of the trash that when burn produces pollutants and incidentally the region 10 when they acted on this in favor that position region 10 of EPA referred it to mr. Reilly (00:43:04) they cited. (00:43:06) The pollution prevention statement of EPA saying this is what we ought to be doing Riley disagreed give you some sense of what's going on. (00:43:15) So what I'm pointing out very simply is the control the incinerator represents the old control (00:43:23) approach and it doesn't work. (00:43:26) What recycling represents is prevention? If the empty soup can is born separate? And you recycle it. It never becomes trash. It becomes a useful. It starts as a useful material and it remains a useful material. If you keep the paper separate. And it's paper after all (00:43:57) and it can be handled and made into new paper. What about food (00:44:03) food garbage is also recyclable. In this case. (00:44:08) The idea is for to go back to the soil and food composted is (00:44:14) recyclable. Michael referred to the (00:44:17) fact that we did a study in East (00:44:19) Hampton and which we literally demonstrated eighty four point four percent recycling. Well, how is it done? There was (00:44:27) no magic about it. (00:44:28) All we did was to ask people to keep separate. (00:44:33) the food (00:44:33) garbage in other words not make trash out of keep it as food garbage because food garbage is readily (00:44:44) recyclable into perfectly useful compost (00:44:48) good for anything you want to do with it. (00:44:52) Of course if you have glass mixed in with it, that's not so great. And that separation then gives us good compost then we had another container for paper another container for cans and bottles and the fourth container was all the rest (00:45:09) non-recyclables. And what we (00:45:12) discovered was that when we made compost out of the food garbage together with yard waste and in fact used some sewage sludge made perfectly good compost. It happened to be sludge from cesspools. Keep that in mind because that's a very important thing people tell you can't you sludge because got toxic Metals in it. There are 14 sewage treatment plants in New York City. (00:45:38) Only three of them (00:45:39) are heavily loaded with (00:45:41) toxic metals (00:45:42) because most of them come from residential areas in rural areas. You will find that the sludge is really (00:45:50) from cesspools, (00:45:51) which is all residential and there will be very little or no toxic Metals in it. It's a very important thing (00:45:58) in other words good idea to keep the sewage sludge separated, (00:46:02) too. (00:46:03) at any (00:46:03) rate processing the paper and the cans of bottles and the compost we found eighty four point four percent (00:46:11) recycling. Now (00:46:14) you are beginning to win the battle against incinerators here. (00:46:19) How is it happen? (00:46:20) Well, I heard the story about Dakota County where the Commissioners are beginning to change their mind. Why because in the last election, they won by 400 votes and the Dakota County people had collected 4,000 signatures against the (00:46:40) incinerator and let me tell you that begins to work on the East Coast now in the Northeast there are at (00:46:47) least I don't know Neal. Maybe you check me. (00:46:50) I think they're probably at least two or three dozen. (00:46:55) Commissioners County Commissioners members of City council's who have lost their jobs because of an incineration vote (00:47:05) and that is the way to do it. In other words. We have to say we have the (00:47:11) right. We have the right everybody agrees to do something about cleaning up the environment. (00:47:19) We now know how to do it the way to do it is for us to have something to say about (00:47:25) how food is grown (00:47:29) how trash is disposed of (00:47:32) how cars are (00:47:33) manufactured. It's not going to be easy. The incinerator is the (00:47:38) easiest one because the (00:47:40) municipality and the county has a lot to say (00:47:42) about it and it's easy for us to have access but (00:47:46) beginning there we have to accept the idea that we're going to challenge the corporations. Exactly where they now hold the power. They're the (00:47:58) ones who decide what to (00:48:00) produce and we have to say you can't do. (00:48:06) This if it is a source of pollution (00:48:11) some of you know (00:48:12) about the pollution prevention action plan, which the national toxic campaign Greenpeace and Clearwater action involved in what's going to happen here is people going to be asked to (00:48:31) look at the origin of your (00:48:33) pollution the origin meaning who produces it and why (00:48:39) is there a corporation (00:48:41) that is emitting toxic materials? Make a list of them. I understand there's already a list of 351 polluters in this area (00:48:53) go to them and make a demand a (00:48:55) reasonable demand like don't (00:48:57) do it. and say we'll give you I forget what the schedule is some time until April (00:49:08) to figure out whether you're going to make take steps in this direction. If not, you can expect action from us on Earth Day (00:49:17) already. The national toxic campaign is persuaded 1200 supermarkets to take to stop buying (00:49:28) food containing a series of carcinogenic pesticides. (00:49:34) Keep in mind the ALR thing. You see there's a classical example of prevention. (00:49:41) What happened? There was you may remember nrdc and EDF got into a (00:49:47) battle over how much (00:49:49) ale are the stuff that is helps produce shiny apples how (00:49:55) much ALR was (00:49:56) tolerable in apples and apple juice those are big debate and nrdc of course said the standard should be more rigorous and EPA less rigorous. (00:50:06) So on big argument the usual thing. but then bunch of mothers including Meryl Streep said, you know, we're feeding our kids something that's bad. Who wants to argue about how bad it is after a food is supposed to be good for you and a mother feeding a child really is not interested in figuring out. What's the risk balance here? And the result was that as soon as this became clear sales of apples and apple juice dropped by 50% (00:50:43) And a large was taken off the market by Uniroyal the producer (00:50:49) now that's pollution prevention that reduces the emissions to (00:50:53) zero. You cannot argue worry about risk-benefit (00:50:57) and you know strangely enough there is still apples and apple juice. That is that is what (00:51:06) pollution prevention (00:51:07) means and if (00:51:10) there are other situations like that. That's what the pollution prevention action plan is about. Well, let me say that we also have to think ahead because you may say well, okay, we what we're going to do is start this kind of action directed at the corporations. (00:51:33) But you have to realize that it's it's not going to end there. You have to ask yourself. Well, what are we asking the corporations to do here? You see there's a principle if they're all operating by. They decide where to invest their (00:51:50) money. That is what to produce and how to produce it (00:51:56) according to certain very clear-cut principles. maximizing their profit (00:52:04) There's nothing wrong with making a profit. Everybody has to have a profit. Otherwise you can survive but they're always (00:52:09) interested in a little more (00:52:12) than what they had before in other words when you go from a small car to a big car you get more profit. You're making profit with a small car, but you get more with the big car. Okay, (00:52:27) that's their principal a (00:52:28) tad and and market (00:52:30) share. Now people say (00:52:33) okay, we're going to tell them to respect the environment and incidentally you're going to see a flood of corporate advertising the likes of which you have never seen all of their industrial organizations are all geared up. (00:52:53) We Are The environmentalists Well, of course now the bushes environmentalists anybody can be And I going to say over and over again. We are responsible. We are going to take this very serious very seriously. The head of DuPont said that the chief executive officer should be the chief environmentalist in the corporation and (00:53:18) there are environmentalists who think (00:53:21) okay. (00:53:23) We now have to start (00:53:26) getting them to make these promises. Well, what are you going to ask them to do now? The latest thing is (00:53:34) What's called the Valdez principles for corporate responsibility. A group of environmentalists and investment bankers got together and wrote up a set of principles do this do that. So on and the basic principle, let me read it to you is that (00:53:58) public the (00:53:59) corporations are asked to publicly affirm their belief that corporations and their stockholders have a direct responsibility for the environment (00:54:10) and to seek (00:54:11) profits only in a manner that leaves the Earth healthy and safe. All right, suppose Corporation says yeah, we agree. (00:54:23) This will mean that they'll have to cut their profit (00:54:28) because obviously they chose the way of producing things that maximizes profit take for example, the petrochemical industry the petrochemical industry now produces about the same amount of toxic emissions as it does material that it sells it sells about 560 billion pounds of chemicals a year. And the latest figure is it produces 400 billion pounds of toxic chemicals that go into the environment 99% going to the environment. (00:55:00) 1% is (00:55:02) destroyed by incineration which isn't a great idea anyway, but it's the only way to destroy it. (00:55:08) Now since the petrochemical (00:55:10) industry produces (00:55:12) that much toxic material and a lot of its own products (00:55:17) are toxic and harmful to the environment for example Plastics. (00:55:22) What would it mean for the petrochemical industry to operate in a healthy and safe way? Well at the very least you would have to ask them to destroy all of the toxic (00:55:36) material so it doesn't get into the environment. (00:55:40) Well, you know what that would cost (00:55:42) about 10 times more than the current total profit of the industry. (00:55:47) It's very expensive. In other words, (00:55:50) if the petrochemical industry were asked to be healthy and safe. They would commit corporate suicide which might not be a bad idea. (00:56:03) But I want to I point this out to you to read so that you realize where we're heading. We're heading toward a New (00:56:11) Economic and political situation (00:56:15) in our economic (00:56:16) system technically known as capitalism. (00:56:21) It is the absolute right of the private owner of (00:56:25) capital to decide what to do with that capital. (00:56:31) Even the stockholders (00:56:32) don't have any rights (00:56:35) the all the stockholder has (00:56:37) a right for is the profit not long ago when the head of Standard Oil of Indiana decided to switch toward the chemical production. He was interviewed and he said we aren't quoting we are not in the energy business. We're in the business of providing the best return we can on the stockholders (00:56:59) investment and the corporation is allowed to produce whatever it wants oil chemicals steel or plastic swizzle sticks. (00:57:10) As long as the stock holder gets the (00:57:14) profit. So what I've now told you is. Everyone (00:57:21) recognizes that it is a (00:57:22) social. Demand and a social (00:57:26) response responsibility to really improve the environment we have failed to do it, (00:57:32) but we now know how to do (00:57:33) it by prevention, but (00:57:35) prevention means determining what is (00:57:39) produced and how its produced (00:57:41) Time Has Come For What might be called Eco (00:57:45) democracy. Let's do it. Thank you.