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Entering East Berlin in 1989, the air was dark and suffused with smog. Unlike the west, the Communist east had no environmental controls not on factories nor on the tinny Trabant cars that put out toxic emissions.

The news of Donald Trump dismantling environmental protections got me remembering that cold day in 1989 when I crossed from free West Berlin to the Communist east.

And saw an unexpected contrast.

The air.

The west was clean and bright, the east darker and suffused with smog.

You wouldnt think it possible for pollution to blanket just half of a city, but that was Berlin.Because of policy.

Unlike the west, the Communist east had no environmental controls not on factories nor on the tinny Trabant cars that put out toxic emissions.

I had rushed to Berlin in November of 1989 when the first reports came of the wall opening a literal crack in the iron curtain of Communism.

It wasn't wide open yet East Germans had been allowed to visit the west a few times, but soldiers with gunspatrolled the top of the wall. And it was an ordeal for westerners to go east.

I finally got papers and transited through four sets of guards at Checkpoint Charlie. It was like going back to 1949, buildingsstill scarred with World War II damage. Signs of Communism's economic failure were everywhere, with long lines at stores and gas stations.

And then there was the polluted air.

Id have thought the west side, with its traffic and skyscrapers, would have been more polluted. But in a democracy, the people have a voice and demand livability.

By contrast, the Communist leaders were totalitarians who tossed aside bothersome environmental standards in a single-minded push for growth.

The impact went beyond smog in East Berlin. Six months after the wall fell, The New York Times reported that Eastern Europe's environment was "ravaged."

"Corrosive soot," theTimes said, "has fouled water and soil, and in blackened industrial cities the air is laced with heavy metals and chemicals. In a world ruled by production targets, there was no pressure to clean up."

Things were similar across much of the Soviet bloc, so bad that it was a big driver of the historic 1989 protests that swept away Communism itself.

I remember that as I planned my trip, I searched for names of the first groups challenging power and one of them was in Bulgaria, and based on the word glasnost, for freedom.The group called itself Eco-Glasnost because what first drove people there to rise up was the ruined environment.

I don't doubt that President Trump thinks his rollback of environmental regulations and carbon standards will help create jobs. And who here doesnt celebrate the way Americas free-market capitalism has been one of historys greatest economic engines?

But one reason for its success is balance.

If pollution had been left uncontrolled in West Germany, would it have been as prosperous?

That day in 1989 showed me clearly that successful economies factor in livability.

And that prosperity comes not just from prioritizing jobs, but theenvironment, too.

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter: @MarkPatinkin

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Mark Patinkin: Communist East Berlin showed that Trump's environmental rollback comes with a price - The Providence Journal