The Environment

The bureaucrats running the Milwaukee recently dumped 4.6 billion gallons of raw sewage into Lake Michigan, writes Chris Westley.

Recorded at Mises University 2001.

Wilfred Beckerman is an outstanding economist of a type probably more common in Britain than America. Like Anthony de Jasay, Amartya Sen, and I.M.D. Little, Beckerman is thoroughly at home in philosophy;

To listen to mainstream economists, including Wall Street analysts, what destruction Isabel wrought is really a bonanza for the economy. Maybe, if we are really desperate to improve the local economies of our cities and towns, what all of us ought to do is bulldoze our property to the ground. Think of all the jobs that will be created when it becomes necessary to rebuild our houses, workplaces, downtowns, shopping malls and other centers of commerce from scratch.

The previous foam used to insulate the Columbia's external fuel tanks contained Freon, which is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) that the EPA banned because of the ozone depletion scare. The wreck of the Columbia was almost certainly due to a chunk of insulating foam coming loose and hitting some heat-protecting tiles, scattering them and leaving the spacecraft vulnerable to the intense heat.

It appears that the issue of global warming is a bit more complicated than those in the major media outlets and the environmentalist organizations would want us to believe. It also appears that our "fragile ecosystem" is a bit more robust than they would have us believe.

In the writings of modern evangelical environmentalists runs a disturbing theme: the idea that it is possible for a small group of individuals to improve upon our use of the environment through coercion. In the name of stewardship, they lay claim to control of every aspect of our lives.

The answers we receive from the academics in response to the collapse of the Enron Corporation and the implosion of other firms are not answers at all. At best, they deal only with effects, or, at worst, reverse the pattern of cause and effect. To put it another way, writes William Anderson, the people who are supposed to know the answers don’t even know what questions they should pursue.

Creating traditions of free trade, property rights, and entrepreneurship in an impoverished continent, often amid lethal tribal and religious conflict, will take decades to achieve. But it is the only way to throw off the yoke of foreign aid.

It was only a matter of time before the Feds realized that political capital could be created from the Enron mess. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is now investigating all electricity sellers for evidence of pricing schemes employed during California’s energy crisis. In true Soviet-like fashion, the FERC has issued a deadline by which suspected firms must “admit or deny” their complicity in engaging in spurious pricing schemes during the time period.