Environmental Law & Liberty

Some people consider laws protecting the environment to be an infringement on human liberty.

Can I dump my garbage onto your front lawn just because it's convenient for me? Or does government have a duty to protect your rights, as well as a duty to not interfere with mine?

Why should I have any more right to dump garbage into other people's air?

Responsible and considerate people do not drive across a neighbor's lawn, dump garbage over their fence, steal their cars, or blow car exhaust in their faces. Not everybody is responsible and considerate. We make social agreements on what is acceptable behavior, then we authorize public servants to use force to compel obedience to those agreements from people who do not want to respect them; people who do not want to respect the rights of the rest of us.

If you are against all law, and believe in total anarchy, then objection to environmental protection law is at least consistent. If laws against polluting the air that other people breathe are an infringement on individual rights, then so are laws against theft, rape, and dumping garbage on somebody else's lawn.

Very few human beings want to be robbed, beaten, raped or killed. Some, however, are quite willing to rob, beat, rape, and kill others. None of us objects to police enforcing laws to protect the majority of us from the minority that puts their own gratification above anybody else's rights.

Almost every human belong wants to breathe clean air and drink clean water. Many don't want to give up any of our accustomed pleasures and conveniences in order to avoid dirtying the air and water ourselves. It is just as justifiable to use the force of law to control the behavior of those who place their own gratification above the rights of everyone else to clean air, as it is to use the force of law to control those who place their own gratification above our rights to not have garbage dumped on our lawn.

The people who are most at risk of harm by environmental pollutants – very young, very old, sick, poor, and homeless people -- are those least able to take personal action against polluters. By taking group action, our society both protects the weakest among us and improves the health of all. Even short-sighted polluters.