Policy Matters?

When looking to live a greener life, what sort of measures are the most helpful to you?  Well, the most helpful are the ones that you benefit most from, and enjoy the most doing.  However, with goods like the environment, typically the acts of one person are not significant enough to bring the change that needs to happen.  Yes, you can ride your bike to work and the store, to dinners and movies, and for most of your daily activities, yet pollution in various forms (Sulphur and Nitrous Oxides) will still build up in the air because you are the only one riding your bike.  So, alot of these decisions come down to 1 organization – The government.

Please, Leave your feelings on current and past administrations out of the conversation, and stick to the topic at hand.  Also, please leave your feelings of the government in general out.  Thanks and Enjoy reading!

So, you want the planet to be a healthier place, but know that your actions alone wont do much good.  This is where government policy injects itself into the government debate and can make lives better for the citizens.  A perfect example is the northeast part of the country.  All of the sudden, they were having large environmental problems caused by acid rain.  Paint was getting eaten away, things were dying in the soil and people were not happy with the amount of pollution.  Much of the pollution had blown over from the midwest, which has a high concentration of factories that produce lots of sulphur oxides.  As a single person, there’s not much you can do on your own to stop these pollutants from falling on your car or you home.  You could always not buy a new car and lower your dependence on goods manufactured from the midwest, but because goods are still being purchased by most of your friends and neighbors, your actions wont have much effect.  As unfortunate as this sounds, it’s the truth.

This is where the government steps in with its response to crisis, something it deems “policy”.  The policy solution for this was the clean air act, which created a “cap and trade” market for sulphur emissions.  For example, each of the 10 factories were given 10 permits, for a total of 100.  They were also warned that in 5 years, the government would lower the total number of permits available to 90, taking 1 from each of the factories.  Now….we were getting some traction on the acid rain problem.  Instead of getting the people who used the goods produced by the factories, they were able to create a program in which the factories could participate that would effectively solve the problem.

So, while government may not be your end-all, be all solution, sometimes the power of the masses and a “big regulatory stick” can solve the problem in an easy way.

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Tagged as: acid rain, government, policy

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