Some day, a politician will offer reforms harmonizing environmental quality with responsible liberty and modest prosperity. This niche in our political ecology is vacant. Incentives to fill it have been weak. This, however, is rapidly changing. Republican representative Sherwood Boehlert of NY said, “There were some valuable lessons learned by some who ignored environmental policy […]
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The First Amendment of the Constitution safeguards that most essential feature of democracy: the liberty to communicate ideas and advocate alternatives to the status quo. It protects freedom of the press, speech, assembly, and religion. It guarantees our right to complain to and about the government. Environmental advocates use these freedoms to champion reform. Greenpeace […]
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Election politics brought a wave of “green decrees” from Washington. President Clinton has locked in the support of national environmental groups by resolving environmental controversies by executive order. Most recently, Clinton declared 1.7 million acres of southern Utah (seven times larger than Mount Rainier National Park) a national monument, using authority granted under the 1906 […]
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The modern environmental movement evolved from the conservation movement of the turn of the century. We can be grateful for the many notable successes of the early conservationists. They alerted America to serious problems like “cut and run” timber harvesting, overgrazing government lands, and vanishing game. However they also gave us a legacy to overcome. […]
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Deep ecologists urge us to “return to nature”. If we reconnect with nature in a primitive, spiritual way, we may spare mother earth. Reject science, technology, and the market for small-scale, Edenic lifestyles. I like their goals of environmental protection and sustainability, but their means are dangerously misguided. A “return to nature” will increase our […]
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Let’s celebrate our most creative laborers — the entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have been neglected by economists and ignored or derided by environmentalists. Environmentalist Al Gore sees entrepreneurial innovation as “alchemy of a very dangerous form”. Economist Mark Casson notes that economic modelling “leaves no role for the entrepreneur.” The economics discipline has become ever more abstract […]
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Some books change our thinking about institutions long taken for granted. Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert explained how Western water flows uphill toward political payoffs. Alston Chase’s Playing God in Yellowstone exposed the politics which trump both science and economics in our national parks. They herald fundamental reform by publicizing the gaps between intentions and results. […]
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More young Americans believe in UFOs than believe they’ll receive Social Security. Only 25% of Americans trust the federal government. 30 years ago it was 75%. No wonder — the federal government now runs trillion-dollar deficits, dedicates 15% of its budget to pay interest on the national debt, and spends two-thirds of what remains on […]
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Our Stolen Future portrays a frightening world where synthetic chemicals assault our fertility, intelligence, and survival. But instead of delivering substance, it capitalizes on hype. It hit bookstores just in time for Earth Day and on the heels of the National Academy of Sciences’ investigation of synthetic estrogens. Thanks to the big behind-the-scenes boost given […]
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The Gallatin Institute links writers of the West with environmental economists. Last weekend poets, novelists, historians and essayists spent three days exploring ideas and ideals with policy analysts at the Gallatin Gateway Inn, a beautifully restored railroad hotel between Bozeman and West Yellowstone, Montana. Such communication is something new because the participants come from disparate […]
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