Seen that way, the wholesale transformation of production technologies that is mandated by pollution prevention creates a new surge of economic development.

The environmental crisis arises from a fundamental fault: our systems of production - in industry, agriculture, energy and transportation - essential as they are, make people sick and die.

It is simply economically impossible to require controls that even approach zero emissions.

After all, despite the economic advantage to firms that employed child labor, it was in the social interest, as a national policy, to abolish it - removing that advantage for all firms.

The modern assault on the environment began about 50 years ago, during and immediately after World War II.

If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.

Because the global ecosystem is a connected whole, in which nothing can be gained or lost and which is not subject to over-all improvement, anything extracted from it by human effort must be replaced. Payment of this price cannot be avoided; it can only be delayed. The present environmental crisis is a warning that we have delayed nearly too long.