The public
mockery of “environmentalists” for concern about climate pollution began
with a The New York Times op-ed by an Ayn Rand
acolyte on August 28,
1971. Published with the headline “No, Breathe Easier,” mining executive
and propagandist Eugene Guccione falsely claimed that “we are winning
the war on pollution” and then called the greenhouse effect “idiocy”.
Unaware that particulate concentration is decreasing, “environmentalists” talk about the New Ice Age Theory. The build-up of dust in the air, so goes the argument, will screen out the sun and we’ll all be turned into ice.
Then there is the Greenhouse Effect Theory. The build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so goes this particular idiocy, will cause a temperature increase throughout the planet… and we’ll drown in the tidal wave resulting from the melting of the polar ice caps, or roast to death.
These so-called theories contradict each other. We cannot both freeze and roast at the same time. It’s either or. But relax. It’s neither. We won’t freeze because there is no such thing as a build-up of particulates in the air, as lots of tests indicate. Nor will we roast because at the present level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere it would take about 957 years to triple the current level. Such speculations have no more scientific validity than the prediction that my puppy dog, at his present growth rate, would be fifteen feet long and weigh 900 pounds at age five.
The next week, the Times published a response from climate scientist Stephen Schneider, noting Guccione’s op-ed was both factually wrong and dangerously optimistic about the threat of pollution-induced climate change.
Guccione, a chemical engineer who embraced the ideology of free-market economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Alan Greenspan, was then the editor of Engineering & Mining Journal. He later edited Mining Engineering journal and chaired the Mountain States Lime cement plant in Utah as well as the free-market Committee for Monetary Research and Education. He continued to rail against environmental legislation for impeding the coal and oil industries, argued for subsidizing the domestic oil industry to compete with the Soviet Union, and fulminated against taxation as a form of mugging.
By the 1980s, the Times was running regular climate-denial advertorials from Mobil (and after a merger, ExxonMobil) on its op-ed pages into the 2000s. The tradition continued in the Internet age with dynamic greenwashing Web campaigns co-developed by the Times and ExxonMobil.
Full text of the Guccione op-ed:
We are winning the war against pollution. And this is the biggest untold story in America today. It is a fact corroborated by evidence avail able to anyone who bothers to look at the results of chemical and physical tests that have been run for many years by private and public institutions.
In 1931 and 1932, for instance, after conducting extensive measurements in fourteen of the largest U. S. cities—including New York—the Public Health Service found that the average concentration of particulates in urban air was 510 micrograms per cubic meter, on an annual basis. (The term “particulate” refers to dust and other air borne solid matter.)
In 1957, when H.E.W. began a continuous air-monitoring program in 56 cities, the average particulate concentration was 120 micrograms. Since then, the air-monitoring program has been extended to 64 cities and, ac cording to data published by H.E.W. and the Environmental Protection Agency, the average particulate concentration has been decreasing yearly. In 1969, the average was 92, says William D. Ruckelshaus, director of E.P.A.
So, as far as particulates are concerned, our air is far cleaner today than it was during the Depression when industrial activity was at a low ebb.
Then there is the case of those poisonous gases released to the atmosphere. The worst of these gases is sulphur dioxide, according to “environmentalists” who have launched an all-out war against such industries as copper-smelting and power-generating companies. Build-up of sulphur dioxide is increasing constantly and has reached alarming proportions, we are told. This is untrue. As corroborated by data gathered by the National Air Pollution Control Administration in thirty major cities from 1964 to 1969, seventeen of the cities in 1969 had a lower level of sulphur dioxide than five years earlier, and three cities had the same level.
Yet, “environmentalists” cling to the notion that sulphur dioxide concentration in the atmosphere in creases annually. If that were the case, none of us would be here today because our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents would not have been born; our distant ancestors would have died suffocated by the catastrophic buildup of sulphur dioxide that began when Prometheus stole the fire from the gods.
Unaware that particulate concentration is decreasing, “environmentalists” talk about the New Ice Age Theory. The build-up of dust in the air, so goes the argument, will screen out the sun and we’ll all be turned into ice.
Then there is the Greenhouse Effect Theory. The build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so goes this particular idiocy, will cause a temperature increase throughout the planet … and we’ll drown in the tidal wave resulting from the melting of the polar ice caps, or roast to death.
These so-called theories contradict each other. We cannot both freeze and roast at the same time. It’s either or. But relax. It’s neither. We won’t freeze because there is no such thing as a build-up of particulates in the air, as lots of tests indicate. Nor will we roast because at the present level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere it would take about 957 years to triple the current level. Such speculations have no more scientific validity than the prediction that my puppy dog, at his present growth rate, would be fifteen feet long and weigh 900 pounds at age five.
We are winning the war against pollution. Are the so-called environmentalists happy? They should be, if a cleaner environment is what they want. But the fact that we are effectively reducing pollution, and that predictions of environmental dooms day are unwarranted, should not lead us into premature victory celebrations. The war isn’t over yet. Pollution does exist. And the problem, as usual, will be solved by men of reason and knowledge.
Eugene Guccione, a chemical engineer, is senior editor of Engineering and Mining Journal.
Full text of Dr. Stephen Schneider’s response: To the Editor: The opinion that we are “winning the war against pollution” expressed by Eugene Guccione on his Aug. 28 Op-Ed column is based upon conclusions that are often inaccurate and certainly misleading.
For instance, Mr. Guccione summarily dismisses an important theory of climate change—that the build-up of dust in the air might eventually screen out enough sunlight to initiate an ice age. His reasoning is based on statistics showing that the average mass (weight) of suspended particles in the air over American cities has dropped since 1957 due to emission controls. It is misleading to conclude from this evidence that dust particles, therefore, have no potential effect on global climate.
Although the weight of the particles suspended in the air over American cities has gone down, the opacity of the atmosphere has gone up. Opacity is a measure of the “haziness” of the atmosphere and depends upon both the mass and number of particles in the atmosphere. An increase in opacity of the atmosphere results in a decrease of sunlight reaching the earth’s surface. Thus opacity on a global scale is the important variable in studying the effect of particles on climate, not merely the weight of particles suspended over American cities.
In some remote places and even far out in the Atlantic Ocean, in fact, recent studies have shown an increase as large as 100 per cent in opacity of the atmosphere from particles over the last fifty years. The reason that opacity is going up while at the same time emission controls seem to be decreasing particle concentrations in the cities is that controls remove only the large-sized particles. Since these larger particles carry most of the weight of all suspended particles, it is tempting to assume (as Mr. Guccione did) that the total future effect of particles on the climate is also decreasing.
In supercilious tones, Mr. Guccione also decries the “idiocy” of the Greenhouse Effect Theory of increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere on warming the climate.
It is again unfortunate that numerous atmospheric scientists do not share his optimistic views. These conclusions were drawn this summer in Stockholm at the international scientific conference “Study of Man’s Impact on Climate,” attended by more than thirty leading atmospheric scientists from all over the world. Their report will be available shortly.
At present, scientists can only show that it is possible that man’s activities might inadvertently affect the climate over the next fifty years. This is particularly important since a recent study has indicated that if the world population increase and energy demands continue at present rates, man’s “potential to pollute” will increase six- to eightfold in the next fifty years.
I agree with Mr. Guccione that it is obvious that “we cannot both freeze and roast at the same time.” But serious scientific studies have indicated that CO2 and dust pollution can affect climate, albeit in opposite directions. We do not yet know the magnitude of these influences well enough to be certain which, if either, of these effects might predominate.
Though some “environmentalists” may exploit this issue for its sensational appeal, Mr. Guccione should not counterattack with lullabies. What we do need is an accelerated program of scientific research along with improved international cooperation.
The writer is an atmospheric scientist of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.