by George Duvall
15. August 2011
I recently talked with a smoker. I won't reveal his name, but Jimmy Smoke would suffice here. During the conversation, Jimmy Smoke lit up several times, and it seemed that each flick of the lighter reminded him of how society was openly persecuting tobacco users. Smokers are relegated to distant patios. They can't smoke indoors anymore. They are surrounded by harpies that scold them. And now, some communities ban smoking outdoors, too!
"The air doesn't belong to anybody," he fumed.
After breathing the haze that had gradually come to surround him, and ruminating on how the smoke that had just circulated inside his lungs was now being inhaled into mine, I retorted, "The air doesn't belong to anybody; it belongs to everybody."
I couldn't tell whether my comment quieted or disquieted him, but for a moment he stood transfixed, and then went on to another topic. Many, I believe, have only a dim awareness that what they do to the air could affect anyone else. An ethics professor I know would chalk it up to infantile, self-centered thinking or inadequate social development.
The exchange with Jimmy was a microcosm; let's take a look at the mesocosm.
In June, a Des Moines developer by the name of Bobby Joe Knapp was sentenced to 41 months in prison for willfully violating the Clean Air Act. The prison term will be followed up by 2 years of supervised release, 300 hours of community service, and a $12,500 fine.
It seems that over a three-year period, Bobby Joe, owner and operator of the old Equitable Building in downtown Des Moines, carried out extensive renovations to the property that involved the removal of asbestos-laden pipe coatings and tiles.
Bobby Joe had his workers remove asbestos from the upper stories of the building and hide the material in an uncovered dumpster. The workers had neither protective equipment nor proper training. The tenants and customers who still did business on the lower floors had no idea of the dusty death that floated aloft.
Finally in 2009, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources became involved and fined Bobby Joe $500,000. What became of that fine is unclear as Bobby Joe has since been sentenced to prison and lost the Equitable in foreclosure.
Bobby Joe pled guilty, but asked to have his prison time reduced or eliminated completely. After all, he had done good things for people in the past. He was basically a good man and it was just a little air.
What Jimmy Smoke and Bobby Joe have in common is that they don't believe the air belongs to anybody. It's vast! There's so much of it! A little dust or smoke could do no harm.
Jimmy is now taking care of his wife, who – surprise! – is suffering from the first stages of lung cancer. He never realized that it was her air, too.
Bobby Joe thought he should be let off for spreading contamination throughout the streets of Des Moines, planting the seeds of mesothelioma in possibly thousands of lungs.
I don't feel the need to take this to the macrocosm, to large-scale polluters and politicians who want to eliminate the agencies that tell them, "The air doesn't belong to anybody; it belongs to everybody."
Large non-compliant corporations poison the air, too, on a far greater scale than my examples above, and I wonder why they do not end up either like Jimmy Smoke, forever grieving over his carelessness, or like Bobby Joe, griefless, still careless, but enduring its consequences?
Maybe it's the same in microcosm, mesocosm and macrocosm. Maybe it's just part of our lower human nature, infantile self-centeredness or inadequate social development to think, "The air doesn't belong to anybody."
