Environmentalism

Endangered: Property Rights

by James Bovard June 1, 1998

The rights of hundreds of thousands of Americans have been shredded by federal proclamations of the sanctity of species such as the Soccorro isopod, the Texas wild-rice plant, the fringe-toed lizard, the kanab ambersnail, and fairy shrimp. At the time the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted in 1973, most congressmen and most Americans believed that the act would ...

Our Ultimate Resource Gone

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 1998

On February 8, economist Julian Simon died. It is a grave loss on many levels. He was, first of all, a wonderful human being -- ever positive, smiling, and encouraging; a complete joy to be around. After that, he was one of freedom's great crusaders. When our age was ...

The Price of Junk Science

by Sheldon Richman December 1, 1997

The Clinton administration knows how to add insult to injury. Not only is it committed to an environmental program that will sap the American economy of its vitality, it also refuses to level with the American people about the costs. At the global warming conference in Kyoto, Japan, the ...

Private Ownership and the Environment

by Lawrence W. Reed November 1, 1994

When it comes to "environmentalism," it is presumed by many that government is the only game in town. At least that is the message of radical environmentalists, who see private enterprise as the villain and the public sector as the white knight. That perspective is being challenged by a growing number of scientists and public scholars advancing what is known ...

The Environment Since the Industrial Revolution

by Harry Lee Smith September 1, 1993

The unprecedented improvements in the quality of human life during the past 200 years have been the direct result of the individual freedom, technology, industry, and economic growth that began to flower during the Industrial Revolution. The dramatic increase in life expectancy, and hence population, since the Industrial Revolution can be attributed to what may be called "Old Environmentalism" — ...

The Population Problem That Isn’t

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1993

It is an article of faith that the world suffers from overpopulation. This alleged problem surfaces in many contexts: poverty in the developing world, global warming, environmental degradation, and so on. It has been said over and over again: we won't ever get a handle on the myriad problems plaguing human society until we get control of population growth. ...

Freedom, Private Property, and the Environment

by Jacob G. Hornberger May 1, 1993

Unfortunately, most Americans believe that the only way to preserve our environment is through public ownership of the means of production. "If there were no environmental threat," the refrain goes, "we would favor a capitalist system for America. But since our environment is at stake, we have no choice but ...

Liberty and the Environment: Freedom Protects, Government Destroys

by Jarret B. Wollstein May 1, 1993

All of us want a safer, less-polluted environment. Increasingly, people throughout the world have become aware that we are damaging our environment in many ways, harming ourselves and threatening the welfare of future generations. In South America and Asia, rain forests are being destroyed at the rate of over 30 acres a minute. In 50 years, these forests could be ...

Property Rights Better Than Bureaucrats

by Chuck Olson May 1, 1993

Just as centralized economic planning has failed, centralized ecological planning will fail. The solution to our environmental problems will not be found in more government agencies, bureaucrats, and arbitrary regulations. Rather, we need an approach which relies on individual responsibility and its concomitants, individual liberty and private-property rights. Traditional economists point ...

The United States Forest Service: The World’s Largest Socialized Road-Building Company

by Michael Peterson May 1, 1993

The old joke goes that if all economists were laid end to end, they still couldn't reach a conclusion. However, if you did the same to all the roads the Forest Service plans to build and reconstruct by 2030, you would reach the conclusion that such activity is ludicrous, and you would travel to the moon and back and ...