Americans, once 'suffocated by smog, poisoned by water,' face return to bad old days

Protesting pollution on LaSalle Street, 1970.

     In 1889, the American correspondent for the Allahabad Pioneer arrived on the shores of Lake Michigan and was momentarily impressed.
     “I have struck a city — a real city — and they call it Chicago,” Rudyard Kipling, 23, informed his readers in northern India. "The other places do not count."
     But initial approval evaporated as he looked around, noting: "Its water is the water of the Hughli," — a branch of the Ganges in West Bengal famous for its pollution, "and its air is dirt."
     Unregulated industry — enormous stockyards dumping into the canals, making them, in Kipling's words, "black as ink, and filled with untold abominations," smokestacks belching filth — will do that. Today when we call Chicagoans "gritty" we are speaking about toughness; 137 years ago, it meant they were coated in coal dust.
     What changed? Well, conscientious businesses, concerned about the effect pollution was having on the quality of life of their neighbors, took it upon themselves to clean up their acts and ...
     Ha-ha, just kidding. Early April Fool's. No, of course, business, then and now, cares only about short-term profits. But government forced them to act in a socially-responsible fashion, setting health standards and limiting pollution. Only then did city dwellers breathe easier, and "grit" could fade into colorful metaphor.
     I was reminded of this flipping open the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine and coming upon "The Dismantling of Environmental Protections — A Grave Threat to America’s Health" by a pair of Harvard doctors, Adam W. Gaffney and David Himmelstein, joined by three other health experts.
     They start with another once notoriously dirty city — Cleveland — and the 1969 combustion of its Cuyahoga River, so polluted it caught fire, "sparking national attention to environmental degradation."
     A president not famous for his selflessness, but Cincinnatus compared to our current commander-in-chief, took decisive action:
     "In his State of the Union address seven months later, President Richard Nixon lamented that Americans were being 'suffocated by smog, poisoned by water' and proclaimed that clean air and water should 'be the birthright of every American.' At Nixon’s urging, Congress established the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and passed the Clean Air Act (CAA) with bipartisan support. Air-quality upgrades mandated by that act and enforced by the EPA are among the most effective health interventions of the past half-century, having reduced air pollution by 75% in the United States and saved at least 200,000 lives per year."
     Now our birthright is being taken away — it isn't just voting. Our country is in full retreat regarding the environment.

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