THE ENVIRONMENT
After the ballyhoo
STANLEY JOHNSON
Well, they have come and gone. For four days Strasbourg was host to princes, plan- ners and parliamentarians. Whole tracts of life-giving, ecologically-balanced forest must have been pulped to provide paper for the official `documentation'; the level of carbon- dioxide in the atmosphere must have risen measurably with the inflow of jet aeroplanes: the poor abused Rhine had suddenly to accommodate the refuse, treated or un- treated, of a hundred banquets. Was it worth all the trouble? Or, as the Duke of Edin- burgh put it in his rousing speech on the first day, would it all be so much 'effluent under the bridge'?
At about 3 p.m. on the afternoon of Wed- nesday 11 February, Robert Boote, Chair- man of the European Committee for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, and a small group of associates, began drafting the final declaration of the conference. They worked through the night and by breakfast the next day thy had pro- duced a document which, give or take a comma or two, the conference saw fit to approve in its entirety.
Europe awoke to learn that some new inalienable human rights were in the pro- cess of being created. Specifically, it was pro-
posed that the Council of Europe should be charged with drawing up a protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, guaranteeing the 'right of every individual to enjoy a healthy and unspoiled environment.' The protocol' was to cover the rights to `breathe air and drink water reasonably free from pollution, the right to freedom from undue noise and other nuisances, and to reasonable access to coast and country- side.'
How marvellous it was! One could imagine the Commission on Human Rights, invoked by the embattled Lady Sayer and flushed with its triumphs in the Greek case, dispatch. ing a team to the depths of Dartmoor. The proposed reservoirs at Meldon and Swin- combe would be attacked not so much as evidence of the failure to achieve a long-term coordinated approach to water-resource planning in the south-west, but as threats to basic human rights.
I don't know whether the Council of Europe will take up this particular recom- mendation of the conference. I rather hope not. These pious generalities may not get us very far and may even confuse the issue. Fortunately, and surprisingly, the conference made a number of specific (or relatively specific) proposals which—if they are taken seriously by governments—could do a great deal of good. For example, it urged that the `unwanted effects of the internal combustion engine, jet aircraft and chemicals (pesticides, fertilisers and detergents) should be elimin- ated as quickly as possible.' It urged that techniques should be developed and imple- mented to 'enable waste products to be reused or to be emitted in a form or quahtity which can be absorbed, without long-term damage, by the environment.' It urged that wherever possible mineral extraction should provide for the ultimate re-use of land. It urged that steps be taken to safeguard immediately un- spoilt areas of coastline and lake-shores.
Urging, of course, is always easier than doing. The danger is that the one may be confused with the other. That's why ECY 1970, and all the present ballyhoo over pol- lution, could in fact boomerang dangerously. People may be misled into thinking that something is actually being done. There was a nasty hint of smugness in the air at Stras- bourg, not least among the British delegation. There at the rostrum was Anthony Crosland, Mr Environment in person, to prove that we were taking the subject seriously. Oh yes, a high-powered Royal Commission was all ready to start work. Sometime soon there would be a White (or off-white, because regrettably some of the smokeless zones had had to be suspended) Paper on the topic of Environmental Pollution. He even felt able to give a pat on the back to the 'environment lobby', the cranks and the nature-lovers, the voluntary societies and the local amenity associations, who were carrying the fight into the field before the Government had even reached the sidelines. And, to cap it all, was the conference not aware that a fish had been seen in the Thames?
I don't want this to sound party political, or even partly political. What matters is that those in power (or those likely to be in power) should realise that implementation at a national level of even a small number of the conference's twenty-six recommenda- tions will be a difficult, complex and costly job. A good deal of temporary unpopularity may be incurred before the pay-off is visible. Lead-free petrol may be 2d a gallon dearer; cars which have anti-pollution devices fitted to the exhaust will also be dearer; water rates may have to go up as local authorities treat sewage to a higher standard; industrial re- cycling of water may add appreciably to the cost of the production process and this cost will inevitably be passed on to the consumer; if there is to be sound management and con- servation of national parks and country parks, the car-borne horde may have to pay an entry fee; there may be unemployment and hardship as polluting industries (especially the small uneconomic units) go out of business because of stricter legislation.
The pace in this, as in so much else, may be set by the Americans. Reports of President Nixon's detailed message to Congress on pollution arrived as the final declaration was being drafted. Mr Nixon proposed that the Federal government should spend $4,000 million (over £1,650 million) over a four year period to control municipal, industrial and agricultural wastes. State and local govern- ments were to contribute a further $6,000 million (£2,500 million). There would be swifter court action, and heavier penalties (with fines of up to $30,000 a day) for viola- tors of national air cleanliness standards. New rules would be set for controlling motor-vehicle exhaust emissions which in the us, as in Europe, account for 60 per cent of air pollution.
Nixon is also prepared—or at least he seems so—to address himself directly to the problem of population growth itself in the United States. This question of population growth (and distribution) was reflected in the discussions of all four main themes of the Strasbourg conference: urban development, industry, agriculture and leisure. Prince Philip referred to a 'plague of people' and suggested that the time had come for Britain to have a population policy. Politicians, not- withstanding the existence of the Zuckerman Committee and the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and TechnOlogy who are currently studying the problem, may find this an even harder nut to crack than 'the Environment'. Yet, ultimately, they are two sides of the same coin.
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