Dean Krenz's article in the Sioux City Journal on June 27, 1997, put much of the EPA's dirty laundry before the public. In it he quotes the EPA as justifying much of their regulatory programs by citing the value of life. They, through a complex maze of assumptions are on record as computing the value of a single life saved in the United States as being worth $4.8 million. Krenz can't reason how they could arrive at this number and neither can I.
Just how much is a life worth? Not much if you watch the news and see the starving hoardes in Africa. Or perhaps the life of a child, snuffed out by a physician working under the guise of it's in the mother's best interest. But no, the EPA has another axe to grind. They need to have a number that can be used to justify agency policy in among other things, regulating the amount of particulates in the air. It's a leap of faith to move from a reduction of foreign matter in the air to saving or prolonging a life.
Now we all are for a clean environment. No arguement there. But before we continue on this most worth quest, perhaps we should revisit a bit of scientific data. -- The air in the United States is cleaner now than it has been in the past 30 or so years, maybe more. Yet, the number of people suffering from asthma has shown a dramatic rise. -- How can that be? Are we as a people more puny than those of just a generation ago? Is there something in the environment that is causing this increase? Will lessening the particulates have an effect? Or, perhaps we are just more adept at identifying a malady and maybe, just maybe, some part of our society is benefiting from this new-found epidemic?
Well in partial support of the EPA's estimate, the value of life is certainly more than that arrived at by summation of the value of the chemicals substances contained within a body. And wait, perhaps we have been too hasty, if one looks at the body as a biochemical manufacturing plant, making hormones without end, eg, growth hormone, insulin &c., as well as the replacement value of the different organs, liver, pancreas, kidneys, heart &c, not to mention the creativity of some individuals, then perhaps the EPA is on to something. However, it they are looking at what a laborer, regardless of skill, even with a college education, could make during a life time, they just got it all wrong.
Ah, the results of education, never ceases to amaze me. Especially when it is wasted within government agencies.
At this stage it's good to revisit an old friend, Milton and his poem, On His Blindness.
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