Montana’s economic prosperity is no longer tied to extracting natural resources. It is simply not our strong suit. The best strategy for our prosperity lies in policy innovations that retain and attract human capital, the ultimate key to progress. In part this requires protecting the environment and reducing the state’s income taxes while simultaneously stressing […]
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The United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development concluded last month in Johannesburg, South Africa. Real progress was made in debunking a recurring and fundamental error. Here’s the error: Most environmental problems are due to modernization and affluence. In fact, across time and cultures, technological advances and economic growth have proved the only sure path […]
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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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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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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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Water is precious to life on earth. Healthy organisms, ecosystems, and weather cycles depend on it. A sufficient supply of clean water is the critical first step to improving public health in every society. Just because everyone needs water, however, doesn’t make managing it easy. Developing countries are struggling for water. The World Bank says […]
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