lol, well I don’t see how a cigarette or SUV would count for anything, besides if someone didn’t want you smoking or driving it on their property. But if you blew leaves all over someone else’s lawn I’d think you’d be liable if you refused to clean them up. Don’t you agree? If you were burning coal or something and blankened your neighbors house and lungs or drilling and contaminated their water supply, I think you should be liable.
I think this sort of property rights based environmentalism is very interesting and has been absent from the environmental debate in most quarters and conservatives haven’t made it an issue.
I think it’s interesting also though I wonder how you prevent the whole thing from getting out of hand. For instance, no one could build a nuclear power plant in this country. They’d be tied up in court forever by the “no nukes” crowd.
Most environemntal programs these days are based on hypothetical harm, not actual. To require that actual harm be demonstrated would effectively shut down a lot of environmental regulation, a good thing in my opinion.
For example, the curent EPA laws on ground water, requiring all aquifers to be cleaned to drinkable standards, even if no one has, or will ever , use them for drinking water.
ANother example; a local outcry ( led by big enviro) against a small operator of natural gas drilling waste sumps. They are going to raise public hysteria to get the guy shut down, even though he's followed all local zoning permits, and no harm has been shown.
Third example; a rash of babies born without brains was blamed on a local chemical company along the Texas-Mexico border.
Environmental lawyers sued, a hysterical jury convicted, and the company, and it's shareholders had to pay a multi-million dollar settlement.
LAter, it was found that the defect was actually caused by a corn fungus, which had profilerated that year beause of heavy rain.
This would be great for the economy, as it would limit envrionmental problems to those actually caused, and alternative technologies to those that actually were cost effective without subsidies.