New demographics and cultures are defining the next American West. Newcomers, urban and affluent, are escaping cities to build better lives. They work with information and manipulate symbols rather than stuff, and bring with them an utterly different value system for the land. A value system based on a romantic notion of the West’s ecosystems […]
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Economic analysis can promote environmental quality. By identifying subsidies, inefficiencies, and new opportunities, economists apply their powerful analytical tools to environmental ends. Yet despite its great potential, economic analysis has failed to improve environmental policy in many areas. Environmental regulators often ignore the importance of secure property rights and advocate regulatory “takings” of property with […]
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Markets economize on love, that most precious of values. They encourage cooperation and civility among disparate people. This was one of the great lessons of Kenneth Boulding, a Quaker economist who was founding editor of The Journal of Conflict Resolution. Boulding developed the concept of “Spaceship Earth” with the understanding that we’re all in this […]
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At each summer’s end, I leave our Montana ranch and return to Washington. I love to drive the West. This is a good time to reconsider our culture, ecology, economy and politics. Increasingly, I’m having second thoughts about these subjects. Many friends, academics, business people and environmentalists, are also re-evaluating their approach to environmental goals. […]
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MANY environmentalists oppose hunting. They find the idea of killing animals for sport repulsive and incomprehensible. For these people, sport hunting is an obsolete remnant of our barbaric past, one excised by civilized cultures This position is empathically understandable, but logically paradoxical because hunters are important supporters of wildlife habitat protection. Hunters save habitat as […]
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I’M BACK HOME in Montana for the Christmas break. It’s zero degrees at daybreak, no wind, clear day. It’s great to be on the ranch, but there is something I miss. This morning brought it back. In this holiday season when we show understanding toward others, it helps to know people who spend their lives […]
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