Mr. Trump, Pittsburgh, and Climate

I was particularly amused when President Trump, in his speech withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, stated “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” because he once again demonstrated his ignorance of history.  I grew up in Pittsburgh.  My father worked for US Steel.  I know about the impact of pollution on an economy such as Pittsburgh.

Here is a picture of Pittsburgh at noontime 1940, at the corner of Liberty and Fifth Avenues (source: http://digital.library.pitt.edu).

The smog was so dense that it was more like night than day.  The streetlamps and car headlights had to be on.  I don’t know if even Beijing can compare to Pittsburgh before World War II.  Like in Beijing, people wore surgical masks because of the soot and smoke.

One consequence of World War II was the rise of new powerhouse businesses such as Westinghouse, ALCOA, Gulf Oil, Rockwell International, just to name a few.  Along with existing businesses like H.J. Heinz, these businesses ran into a major problem.  They found it hard to recruit new managers to their corporate headquarters because the pollution was so bad.  As a result, in 1949 Allegheny County (where Pittsburgh is located) passed a smoke control ordinance, pushed by these companies.  This began the trend for improvement in air quality.  Pittsburgh’s success was so highly regarded that The U.S. State Department made a film documenting Pittsburgh’s achievement and presented it in London.  Since pollution from coal-fired plants are a major source of greenhouse gases, the new laws reducing pollution contributed to the slowing of the growth of these gases.

Contrary to President Trump’s assertion about negative economic impacts, Pittsburgh and the Steel industry continued to prosper.  By the 1960s, Pittsburgh was the third largest corporate headquarter city after New York and Chicago.  Today, Liberty and Fifth Avenues look like this (source: Google Maps).

No streetlights on and beautiful sunshine brightens the intersection.  As for the steel industry, it’s decline was not due to pollution control (they changed technology away from coal), but to other economic factors and foreign competition.

One of the problems we have is that we see what exists today as always having been that way.  Many of the anti-vaccine activists never experienced life when measles, mumps, whooping cough, and many other diseases, especially polio, harmed and killed millions.  Most Americans born after 1960 grew up with much cleaner air and water.  This was all due to government actions taken to prevent pandemics and reduce the health costs associated with pollution.  However, we face the threat of global warming.  It is a fact that the average planetary temperature is rising, that the ice is melting at the poles, that the ocean levels are rising threatening coastal areas. 

In addition, people tend to discount the future.  In recent years, we have seen changes in our weather and I leave it to the climatologists to explain it, but as an economist, I know that there are growing economic costs associated with these trends.  Homeowners on the coasts are facing flood conditions they had never experienced before, necessitating spending more on insurance and prevention.  Think about our major cities on the coasts.  Rising ocean levels will require them spending hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars on infrastructure to protect themselves.  The heartland is not immune.  They too face increasing environmental costs.  We see that already.  We worry about the costs of entitlements on our children, but ignore the costs of global warming.

President Trump’s decision to withdrawal from the Paris Accords is short-sighted and ultimately hurts Americans.  Even Pittsburghers will agree with that.