Commentary—

Fighting Pollution —

Good Job For The Other Guy

By William A. Collins

Work together,

Beat our fate;

Never more,

Contaminate.

In the war against global warming, the United States is a draft dodger. And not just because oil companies are so powerful in the White House. Citizens are not eager for combat either. We love big cars, bright lights, and plenty of air conditioning in summer, heat in winter, and space between our houses.

Here in New England, we also wallowed in a deliciously mild early winter that, despite Al Gore, tempts us to think global warming may not be so bad after all. Sure, they’re parched in Texas, but Texans aren’t likely to listen to Al Gore anyway. And so what if a couple more little Pacific islands go under? It’s a small price to pay.

As organized citizens, we pursue environmental advancement through the Northeast states’ lawsuit against the evil power companies in Ohio. Those greedheads daily airmail us soot, mercury, sulfur dioxide, and other noxious gifts. With luck, the 12 plaintiff states will win out and the electricity cartel will have to spend billions to clean up its act. Great. The environment will get cleaner and we won’t have to pay.

Unfortunately, most other improvement doesn’t come so cheap, at least for Yankees. Long Island Sound, for example, while markedly cleaner than during its industrial heyday, still lies downstream of multitudes of people, lawns, pets, cars, and sewage plants. Cleaning it up will take big bucks, which democratically elected legislatures are loath to spend. Surprise, Connecticut has, again, fallen behind in its commitments. The fish and lobsters are very grouchy.

With air quality, we’re also uneven. At the urging of the relentless Connecticut Fund for the Environment, our legislature has ordered that new cars sold here will soon have to meet those pesky California standards. But we keep building highways and putting off new bus routes so that citizens have little choice but to pour ever more exhaust fumes into the atmosphere.

Yes, progress would surely be much easier if the federal government took some modest interest in ecology. One fantasizes beefed-up mileage requirements for new cars, tough limits on landscape desecration by coal mines, increased roof insulation for new buildings, tight curbs on clear-cutting forests, highway aid shifting over to mass transit, prohibition of nuclear power, limits on public air conditioning, and other such Bolshevik-style controls.

But since democracies (especially this one) are not given to rapid change, leadership to stave off environmental disaster is not likely to spring from Washington. That’s one beauty of local governments. They sometimes fall into the hands of hard-bitten environmentalists. So if Seattle creates a parking tax, Carmel buys municipal hybrids, Fargo installs diode traffic lights, and Denver plants a local forest, it all may not change the world much by itself, but that’s how public movements grow.

Which is why local environmental initiatives are worth it. National progress only comes after years of grassroots coalition building. Plus maybe an impressive natural disaster. Hopefully it won’t take the redirection of the Gulf Stream to wake us up. In any case, local and state boldness draws publicity and builds support for bigger change.

But we’re sure of one thing: that while fundamental change may be vital, you and I don’t want to pay for it. No tax increases please, no price increases either, nor out-of-pocket costs. Make corporations pay, and then maybe we’ll agree to limit the air conditioning for ourselves. Or maybe not.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)