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Economics and environmentalism are types of modern religions. So says Robert H. Nelson in his analysis of the roots of economics and environmentalism and their mutually antagonistic relations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The present debate raging over global warming exemplifies the clash of these two public theologies.
At this Policy Forum, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Alvaro Vargas Llosa, former Bolivian President Jorge Quiroga, economist William Easterly, and a group of policy experts discuss the findings of the book, Lessons from the Poor. The speakers examine real-world examples of entrepreneurship and why instead of redistributing existing wealth, governments should free people so that they can create it.