Hard Green

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MOTHER: By your theory, it might be possible for groups of businesses to police themselves. In the absence of governmental overview, what's in it for an individual manufacturer to get a handle on any pollutants they emit?

PH: Nothing. Of course, the traditional problem with pollution is that your cheapest alternative is to clump your trash in the river, right? That's what people have done since time immemorial. With pollution, as with real estate, you still need a process that secures property rights, that says, "Look, this is how much right to pollute you own. This is where you sold it, or retained it, or bought new rights." But those are exactly the same problems that arise with ordinary land. We take property rights in real estate as obvious, but only because we have four centuries of law that have made them obvious.

MOTHER: So you believe that if we apply the same principles to the amount of pol lutants you're permitted to emit that wedo to other real estate and zoning particulars, the system becomes coherent?

PH: Yes, yes of course. I don't know of a single serious commentator ...conservative, liberal, or of any stripe ...who says, "Well, you know, forget about pollution." And certainly it's not my position. All I argue is that there are two factors. One is that there are more cost-effective and efficient means, which will give you larger pollution reduction if you embrace them. Secondly, that chasing pollutants right down to the last molecule is a) impossible, and b) truly counterproductive.

MOTHER: It might be, fair to say that the book, in part, challenges the idea of self-sacrifice. You seem to want to turn on its bead the theory that choosing to use less of everything will somehow remedy environmental problems.

PH: Oh, no. I am quite clear in the end that the only thing I actually believe in implicitly is that people who self-consciously and openly and deliberately say, `Look, I've got enough ...I don't need another car, I don't need a larger lawn, I don't need more beef in my diet,"...those people are making what I consider to be the most fundamental environmental choice. It's an honest one, and it's the only one that I consider 100% legitimate. The fraud that I very much object to is to say, "Look, I can trick the environmental hooks here. I can do efficiency, I can put up solar panel shingles on my roof. Or cut down half an acre of trees on my four-acre lot and erect this giant windmill. And by being so clever about my lifestyle, I can continue to live abundantly in terms of food and energy and everything else. I will then be green, but without changing my lifestyle." That, I am quite sure, is a fraud.

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