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RE-THINKING GREEN
Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy
Edited by
Carl P. Close, Robert Higgs
Environmental quality has been a major public concern since the first Earth Day in 1970, yet the maze of environmental laws and regulations enacted since then has fostered huge government bureaucracies better known for waste and failure than for innovation and success.
Can we do better than this failed environmental bureaucracy? The noted contributors to this volume answer with a resounding “yes.”
Re-Thinking Green exposes the myths that have contributed to failed environmental policies and proposes bold alternatives that recognize the power of incentives and the limitations of political and regulatory processes. It addresses some of the most hotly debated environmental issues and shows how entrepreneurship and property rights can be utilized to promote environmental quality and economic growth.
Re-Thinking Green will challenge readers with new paradigms for resolving environmental problems, stimulate discussion on how best to “humanize” environmental policy, and inspire policymakers to seek effective alternatives to environmental bureaucracy.
Detailed Summary |
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Table of Contents
Part I. The Seeds of Environmental Bureaucracy
Chapter 2 Prophecy de Novo: The Nearly Self-Fulfilling Doomsday Forecast
Craig S. Marxsen
Chapter 3 Doomsday Every Day: Sustainable Economics, Sustainable Tyranny
Jacqueline R. Kasun
Part II. Global Issues
Chapter 4 Population Growth: Disaster or Blessing?
Peter T. Bauer
Chapter 5 After Kyoto: A Global Scramble for Advantage
Bruce Yandle
Chapter 6 Global Warming and Its Dangers
J. R. Clark and Dwight R. Lee
Part III. Endangered Species
Chapter 7 The Endangered Species Act: Who’s Saving What?
Randy T. Simmons
Chapter 8 Fixing the Endangered Species Act
Randy T. Simmons
Chapter 9 Environmental Colonialism: “Saving” Africa from Africans
Robert H. Nelson
Chapter 10 The Ivory Bandwagon: International Transmission of Interest-Group Politics
William H. Kaempfer and Anton D. Lowenberg
Part IV. Entrepreneurship, Property Rights, and Land Use
Chapter 11 Free Riders and Collective Action Revisited
Richard L. Stroup
Chapter 12 Entrepreneurship and Coastal Resource Management
James R. Rinehart and Jeffrey J. Pompe
Chapter 13 To Drill or Not to Drill: Let the Environmentalists Decide
Dwight R. Lee
Chapter 14 Externalities, Conflict, and Offshore Lands: Resolution through the Institutions of Private Property
John Brätland
Part V. Urban Environmentalists
Chapter 15 Is Urban Planning “Creeping Socialism”?
Randal O'Toole
Chapter 16 Eco-Industrial Parks: The Case for Private Planning
Pierre Desrochers
Part VI. The By-Products of Environmental Bureaucracy
Chapter 17 Regulation by Litigation: Diesel-Engine Emission Control
Bruce Yandle and Andrew P. Morriss
Chapter 18 The Environmental Propaganda Agency
Craig S. Marxsen
Part VII. Debating Market-Based Environmentalism
Chapter 19 Market-Based Environmentalism and the Free Market: They’re Not the Same
Roy E. Cordato
Chapter 20: Market-Based Environmentalism and the Free Market: Substitutes or Complements?
Peter J. Hill
Part VII. Environmental Philosophy
Chapter 21: Does “Existence Value” Exist? Environmental Economics Encroaches on Religion
Robert H. Nelson
Chapter 22: Autonomy and Automobility
Loren E. Lomasky
Index
Praise for Re-Thinking Green “To the growing literature and debate on environmental governance Re-Thinking Green adds important insights about alternatives to centralized government control. . . . The book makes good on the editors’ claim that Public Choice theory ‘contributes positive insights that can promote the improvement of our institutions’. The authors featured herein effectively marry Public Choice theories’ pessimistic stance on big government with the rigorous application of economic concepts to produce a well-written and interesting collection of ideas and arguments.”
—The Canadian Geographer
“In Re-Thinking Green, Higgs and Close present a remarkable book that should send the green bureaucracy to their collective battle stations. The book clearly shows the shortcomings of the status quo in which government agencies advance a power agenda that far more reinforces their ambition to expand their controlling turf than produce cost-effective, market-based solutions to assorted environmental problems.”
—Robert C. Balling, Jr., Professor of Geography, Arizona State University
“Re-Thinking Green is quite relevant for the following reason. These days all kinds of environmental groups and activists are competing with each other to produce highly scary and doomsday scenarios about ever increasing threats from all kinds of either real or imagined natural hazards. While the approach is not scientific, this book presents the facts from a socio-economic point of view and makes some very rational recommendations and suggestions. For this reason, this book is of general interest and I recommend it.”
—Natural Hazards
“This superb book provides provocative, fresh insights into the debate over appropriate public policy regarding the environment.”
—Gary D. Libecap, Donald Bren Distinguished Professor, Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Santa Barbara
“Re-Thinking Green challenges the reader to consider whether the existing approach to environmental regulation has been effective and if some other strategy may be better suited to achieve environmental protection goals. . . . very interesting.”
—Journal of Environmental Quality
“Re-Thinking Green is a splendid book that is very adaptable for teaching. The book is clearly written and interesting, covers the environmental topics that concern us today, and features good science and economic logic.”
—Roger E. Meiners, Professor of Economics, University of Texas at Arlington
“Forces readers to re-think both the accomplishments of environmental policy and the policy strategies that will be most effective. The diverse policy studies in this book illustrate how government regulations often generate unintended results.”
—W. Kip Viscusi, Professor of Law and Economics, Harvard University
“We would all benefit if arguments like those presented in Re-Thinking Green were taken seriously by environmentalists and the general public.”
—Daniel Chirot, Professor of Sociology, University of Washington
“A complete guide to environmental policy. This book provides a history of erroneous environmental thinking, a devastating critique of current policies and a menu for improvement.”
—Paul H. Rubin, Professor of Economics and Law, Emory University
“Re-Thinking Green is an important and timely book. It shows clearly the connection between bad science and bad environmental policies that neither help the environment nor are consistent with basic American values. Just as wars bring bureaucratic intrusions on our lives, misguided notions of imminent eco-disasters are used to justify an environmental bureaucracy that can abrogate basic rights of property and due process. The authors in this book show how counterproductive this kind of approach has been and how much better the environment would be served by different policies that rely more on market forces than bureaucratic rules. Those whose primary commitment is to a better environment rather than a hostility to the marketplace are especially advised to read this book.”
—Sam Peltzman, Ralph & Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service. Professor of Economics, University of Chicago
“Re-Thinking Green is an excellent book of easy-reading essays dealing with environmental policy from the perspective of ‘free-market environmentalism’ which combines ideas of public choice theory and Austrian economics. . . . The economic arguments and empirical observations presented in the book remove the readers’ ‘rose-colored glasses’ regarding government action and force them to think about alternative solutions. . . . Re-Thinking Green clearly articulates the message that the current focus of environmental policy (i.e., to solve environmental problems through government regulation) is wrong. . . . I would join the opinion of Roger Meiners on the back cover and strongly recommend Re-Thinking Green for classroom use.”
—Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics About the Editors Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute, author of Against Leviathan and Crisis and Leviathan, and editor of the scholarly quarterly journal, The Independent Review.
Carl Close is the Academic Affairs Director of the Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. and assistant editor of The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy.
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