In today’s WSJ, Daniel Henninger has an excellent column in which he reflects on the deaths of two New York firemen recently in a building that would have been swiftly demolished years ago if it weren’t for the environmentalist mania over asbestos.
Concluding lines: “The political and commercial forces that produced stasis for 130 Liberty Street may outwardly mourn the deaths. But would any of them pull back from their obsessions now to get the building down fast? I doubt it.”
Read the whole thing. The mania over asbestos is just one of many cases where the quest for perfection in one aspect of society creates huge costs in others.
