was nearly biologically dead. It famously caught fire! Lake Washington here in the Seattle area was fully of milfoil and utterly polluted. Smog reports were a daily occurrence in cities like Los Angeles; you can see evidence of the air pollution in old movies and TV shows. A yellow pall over the city. UK passed environmental protection laws after the Great Smog of London in 1952 killed as many as 12,000 people in five days of severe air pollution from coal stoves.

When I was a UVA, Ken Elzinga discussed with the ECON 101 class, various approaches to dealing with pollution, because laws were just then being passed to deal with the problem. Our cleaner air and water now is a result of these policies. It's utterly naive to think that companies would deal with these negative externalities on their own.