Modernization, the replacement of machines for muscle, is a universal social solvent. Even when resisted by traditional leaders, modernization erodes established social, economic patterns, and threatens ecosystems. As my friend Reverend Glover Wagner recently observed in another context, “The mind rebels at such a thought, but that’s the way God wired the universe”. The reason […]
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Fear of climate change, and of-ill conceived policies to halt it, are well founded. Climate change may have catastrophic consequences and prevention is critical. Alternatively, changes might be small, or even beneficial. Or, natural forces could overwhelm human impacts so nothing we can do will matter. Whichever position is correct, the costs of error are […]
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When I unpack the complaints of most environmentalists, I find a common theme. In their view, most people want the “wrong” things. Many enviros fault people who prefer snowmobiles to cross-country skies, Humvees over Hondas, or T-bones instead of tofu. SUVs are subject to especially intense criticism. They see the production and consumption of these […]
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The Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth” report of 1970 stated: “We can thus say with some confidence that… population and industrial growth will certainly stop within the next century, at the latest”. The cause of this projected arrest was a projected scarcity of natural resources. The report’s authors did not understand why scarcity has […]
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What do Cyanide leach mining, dredges, and hydraulic mining have in common? Ecological, social, political, and economic destruction. First consider the most dramatic, hydraulic mining. Here’s how it works. Water is captured at an elevation above the site to be blasted. It is piped downward, picking up four tenths of a pound of pressure for […]
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Last week wholesale gasoline prices hit a historic low (Alas, not at the pump in Montana however.) and crude oil is just over $11.00 per barrel. But it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. On the first Earth Day, ecologist Kenneth Watt stated: “By the year 2000, …there won’t be any crude oil”. And […]
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Pacific Research Institute, 1998, John A. Baden, contributing author and editor.
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University Press of Colorado, 1998, John A. Baden, contributing author and editor (with Karl Hess, Jr.).Available through Amazon Books.
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Second Edition, Indiana University Press, 1998, John A. Baden, contributing author and editor (with Douglas S. Noonan). This is a new edition of a pioneering work on the origins, developments, and recent innovations in the debate on managing commonly-owned lands and resources. It includes both new and updated essays which focus on alternate institutional approaches […]
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The recent budget deal and mid-term elections show why Republicans continue to take a beating. Despite their purported ideology of limited government, Republicans kowtow to special interests favoring crass exploitation of public resources. They are silent when profitable private acts have negative public consequences, for example former Senator Lauch Faircloth’s hog farms in North Carolina. […]
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