John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 194-97, under the heading “Pollution”.

We define pollution as the transfer of matter or energy to the person or property of another without that persons consent.1 Because it is done with consent, pollution violates the rights of the person whose person or property is polluted. It is important to note that the very fact that such transfer takes place is sufficient for it to be pollution. It need not cause danger, nor need it be beyond a certain arbitrary, specified amount. Any such transfer is pollution.

Unthinking people might be tempted to throw their hands in the air in horror at such a statement and the difficulties it would seem to present, but further consideration and careful analysis will show that most, if not all, such difficulties are capable of easy and consistent solution.

The situation, as it exists today, is far from satisfactory. The government is supposed to protect us from pollution, but observation shows that it is one of the worst polluters, for example, public buses and sewerage works. In the United States, prior to the mid and late nineteenth century, air pollution, for example, was considered a tort — a nuisance against which private individuals affected by it could sue for damages or seek an injunction. Furthermore, mass action suits could be taken — that is, one person could sue on behalf of a whole group of people similarly affected, rather than each individual have to sue separately. In the name of “the public interest” the U.S. Government removed these two possibilities from the law, claiming that even though industry did pollute, it was necessary for the “public good” that they be allowed to do so. Any action taken to prevent pollution could result in drops in production, and that the government didn’t want.

It is also interesting to note that the two main areas affected by pollution — the air and the waterways (rivers, lakes, harbours) are the two main areas not privately owned. That these should be badly polluted is no accident, because it is a common observation that people treat their own property with more respect than they do “public” property. Perhaps more important, however, is the fact that normal economic forces don’t operate on government property. Public servants have little incentive to preserve the capital value of a river, for example, by keeping pollution to a minimum. Private owners, on the other hand, would have such an incentive because they would sell fishing rights, commercial development rights, and drinking water supplies. Private owners would not allow sewerage to discharge into their water for these reasons, nor would they allow industrial pollution. They would suffer direct economic consequences as a result.

One final point to be made about our present situation is that arbitrary limits cannot satisfactorily be set to limit pollution. A neighbour’s dripping tap can be just as annoying as very loud music, or late night parties. The noise of a tap, however, would not be over the arbitrary decibel level normally used to measure pollution. Arbitrary cut off points always suffer from the same problems: Who sets them? What criteria do they use? and, How are they justified ahead of some other equally arbitrary criteria? It’s the numbers game again.

The proper solution to the problem of pollution is to be found in recognition and protection of property rights. Pollution violates property rights, and therefore the victims of pollution should be able to gain reparation for damages and/or injunctions against it.

By saying that any transfer of matter or energy to a person’s property without their consent is pollution, we do not open the Pandora’s Box that might be imagined. It is true that this means that all noise and all light for example, are pollution: noise pollution and visual pollution respectively. It does not mean that everyone would be rushing about seeking injunctions and reparations for damages. For a start, most noise and visual pollution causes no damage, so no reparation (or virtually none) would be awarded (a likely verdict would be: guilty of pollution, damages of one cent awarded to the victim.) If the verdict was “not guilty”, the person bringing the would have to pay the costs, so most trivial cases would never reach the courts. Who’d risk paying $100 in costs to get one cent in damages?

Injunctions could be sought, but if one was intolerant or bloody minded about trivial matters, the important thing is that one would be equally subject to counter-suits. If you can hear your neighbour, it’s very likely that he/she can hear you. If you seek an injunction for a trivial matter, so, too, could they. Thus, a stand-off would result, and common sense would, in a majority of cases, prevail. The attitude would be such as now exists in, for example, home units. Neighbours only complain when noise gets “unreasonable”.

This should not be seen as a trivial exercise, however. The fact that no arbitrary limits are set means that in the odd case where a small noise, for example, is very disturbing (such as the dripping tap) the victim does have a means of protecting his rights. This proposed solution is a clean one, involving the derivation and consistent application of a basic principle, rather than the unsatisfactory enforcement of an arbitrary limit.

We do have the technology to have a pollution free society. The only limit is cost, but the cost can’t be avoided anyway. We either pay with extra prices as businesses pass on the cost of their anti-pollution measures, or we pay through a polluted environment. Of these two, the former is by far the most just, and also the cheapest. As was the case in our discussion of conservation, private ownership of what is now public property would also go a long way towards solving pollution problems. This would not be simple to implement, but there is no reason why rivers, lakes and even oceans, shouldn’t ultimately be privately owned.

The case of uranium mining should also hinge around pollution. If mining uranium can be accomplished without pollution then there is no moral way it can be prevented. It can’t be prevented because the uranium might be used to make nuclear weapons. That would make it a victimless “crime”, and would be operating on the legal premise of “guilty until proven innocent”. The arguments against this have been presented elsewhere. Pollution is the weak point of uranium mining and its subsequent use, and because the possible damages are so catastrophic and enormous, the person or company using the uranium would have to be exceptionally careful. To avoid massive reparation payouts, and massive insurance premiums, they would need to have foolproof safety precautions. Or, alternatively, not mine or use uranium.

The problem of pollution has, to date, been sloppily defined and badly misunderstood. It is only by the consistent application of principles that moral and just solutions can be found.

Footnote

  1. This definition was formulated by Robert Poole Jr. “Reason and Ecology,” in D. James (ed.), Outside Looking In. Harper and Row, New York, N.Y., 1972, p. 245.