New at Reason

Tim Cavanaugh | April 22, 2005

Midway through Earth Day's life's journey, Ron Bailey lists all the reasons to be happy.

Comments

|4.22.05 @ 2:25PM|#

Today is my fifth wedding anniversary (and coincidentally, it is also my spouse's!). Five years ago, when we were about to go to the wedding, our big concern (after the upcoming ceremony we were going to) was that Janet Reno's goons had just seized Elian Gonzales by force. When some acquantaince asked why we got married on Earth Day (a year later, first anniversary), I just gave a blank look and asked "It's Earth Day?" I figured that Earth Day must be something like the fourth Sunday in April, and about one year out of every seven, it would fall on our wedding anniversary. That, I thought, was an unfortunate coincidence which would plague every so often in our marriage. Obviously, I was very mistaken. Now, every year, I have to endure Earth Day propoganda on my anniversary. Why hadn't we thought of that before we selected the date? Well, to be honest, neither my spouse nor I ever gave two figs for Earth Day before we discovered that every year our anniversary would be on it.

|4.22.05 @ 2:49PM|#

Not to deny Mr. Bailey's overall point, but even steady improvement in
the indicators of short term damage doesn't mean that we get to stop
thinking about these issues.

I recently finished reading Jared Diamond's newest book (_Collapse:
How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed_) which tells a
good-news/bad-news story about the kinds of trouble we face. The long
and short of it seems to be: we've done some damage (in places a lot
of damage) and we're going to have to live with the consequences, but
we're getting better at living well without screwing up our support
system.

Readers of Hit and Run will appreciate the bits where Dr. Diamond
talks about bottom up solutions and market forces driving
environmental reforms and sustainable use.

Now ask yourself "How can we support all the world's current
population with a quality of life comparable to the richest nations on
the globe today?" It may not be impossible, but we're going to have to
get better and more efficient at extracting quality of life from the
resources around us...

Cheers.

digamma|4.22.05 @ 3:16PM|#

I love it - a Dante reference right below a BT reference.

|4.22.05 @ 3:28PM|#

EarthDayIsWhen:

It is more amusing that it's Lenin's birthday than Earth Day. Seems appropriate getting married on a dictator's birthday, doesn't it? :)

|4.22.05 @ 3:29PM|#

Dear Earth Day Is When:

My review of Diamond's Collapse will be in the next issue. There's still time to subscribe.

|4.22.05 @ 3:33PM|#

ron - care to give us a one sentence summary? i thought some of his book was very interesting, and some of it was decidely odd (especially the chapter on the mayans, though i realize his focus is environment/resources as a driver of socio-political realities, etc)

my crisis communications professor assigned this to us, but she's a conneticut liberal type so it fits, i guess.

|4.22.05 @ 3:35PM|#

Let's not pretend this stuff all fixed itself. Surely careful attention to the environment, and raising public awareness about how to help preserve it, did exactly that? We can ridicule the environmental movement all we want, but that movement was the catalyst for improvement and conservation.

Larry A|4.22.05 @ 3:37PM|#

David McKee: [Now ask yourself "How can we support all the world's current population with a quality of life comparable to the richest nations on the globe today?"]

The main factor limiting quality of life in undeveloped nations are the policies of their governments. If the third world really consisted of developing nations they would follow the same path the US did in terms of reductions in polution, population growth, and poverty.

|4.22.05 @ 3:44PM|#

Now ask yourself "How can we support all the world's current population with a quality of life comparable to the richest nations on
the globe today?"

Are you saying we should? If so, I strongly disagree.

The 3rd world is not our "burden."

Live free, fight or fall.

|4.22.05 @ 4:04PM|#

LArray A: [The main factor limiting quality of life in undeveloped nations are the policies of their governments. If the third world really consisted of developing nations they would follow the same path the US did in terms of reductions in polution, population growth, and poverty.]

Sure.

That is in everyone's best interest.

But the developed world doesn't live on its own resources right now, so success for the rest of the world without further improvements in our wealth/impact ratio either costs us some of our prosperity, or ravages the world.

The loophole is the bit about "without further improvement".

We need to (keep!) getting better at living well on the resources we've got in a finite ecosystem.[*]

The good news is in Mr. Bailey's article. The last 30 years have been hugely successful. But we can't quit now.


----------
Mike_twincities:[Are you saying we should? If so, I strongly disagree.

The 3rd world is not our "burden."]

My "we" was in a global sense---all humanity.

I don't want to pay for 'them', and wouldn't ask you to, either.

But unless you intend to beat 'them' down, the rest of the world will develop, and will increasingly compete with you for resources of all types. The more efficiently resources can be converted to wealth---including having a nice world to live in---the richer we can all be.



[*] Exploiting the wealth of the solar system could be a big win here.


Cheers.

|4.22.05 @ 4:07PM|#

So we have the Rio Conference and its offspring putting statements that parallel Bailey's comment about economic growth being a necessary condition for environmental protection, and we have the Scient Correspondant of the leading libertarian magazine identifying "heavy handed government regulation" as one of the leading causes of improvements in environmental quality.

The abondonment of the obsolete concept that environmental and economic values inevitably conflict is a great step forward, and both sides are to be credited. Happy Earth Daily, Ron.

|4.22.05 @ 4:09PM|#

Environmentalists are like the police: they do some good, but whenever the trends lok favorable they take all the credit and when trends look bad they take none of the blame.

|4.22.05 @ 4:12PM|#

I do have to question this, though:

"Corrupt governments in poor countries continue to sell off their nation's forests without regard to the desires of local people...In general, where environmental degradation continues, you will find that the resource is unowned and thus unprotected."

Wasn't the resourced un(privately)owned in the hands of the government? And isn't it becoming owned and unprotected in the hands of the buyers? Private ownership doesn't seem to be the critical issue here.

|4.22.05 @ 4:35PM|#

David--

Roger that.

Out here.

|4.22.05 @ 7:09PM|#

Joe -
when they say owned by the government, it also should read "inhabited by indigonous population" its happend in india and south amrica, companys bye the forest of the government, who technicaly own it, but only due to the people living in it, not having the power to stand up for what is rightfully theres. Its the same vien as the emminant domain abuse that happens n the US the government can either claim to own it, or say that it can be put to a better use, and due to ill defined property rights of those who doo actually own it, it gets sold to annother company, for oil etc.

|4.22.05 @ 8:41PM|#

Did anybody else catch Bailey on Olney's NPR show today? Warren Olney was so absorbed with the idea that private property is a part of the solution that he wold hardly let Bailey talk about anything else.

...I wanted to hear Bailey's take on the technology angle, but good show Bailey!

|4.23.05 @ 1:52AM|#

Bailey mentions alot of environmental stuff that has started getting good instead of bad like the environmental zealots said.

How did "IT" get fixed?

I wonder what people think about freeform's comment.

Was nothing wrong to begin with?
Was the good stuff due to government programs?
Did regular folks bring it into the awareness of the public?
Capitalism?
Just Coincidence?
Solar flares?

I don't know. I'm just a dumb lurker.

fyodor|4.23.05 @ 12:32PM|#

joe,

I see what you're saying, but consider this. If one sees the indigenous population as being the rightful owners of the forest, then it was never the government's to sell. Therefore, whomever they sell it to is still not a rightful owner, from a moral/ethical POV, even if they legally own the deed.

|4.23.05 @ 9:29PM|#

Anybody remember that movie Ferngully: The Last Rainforest?

Man, did it ever suck!

|4.24.05 @ 8:12PM|#

fyodor,

"If one sees the indigenous population as being the rightful owners of the forest..."

then one is dramatically at odds with the free market, individual, capitalist definition of ownership.

But yes, I agree wholeheartedly.

|4.25.05 @ 12:28PM|#

"If one sees the indigenous population as being the rightful owners of the forest..."

"then one is dramatically at odds with the free market, individual, capitalist definition of ownership."

No, I don't think so. They have the traditional right of first occupancy, plus they've been mixing their labor with the land (often by setting fire to it and planting in the burned area, but also by hunting it, and gathering from it.)

Actually, libertarianism could stand some clarification on how previously un-owned property becomes owned.

Mark Bahner|4.25.05 @ 12:56PM|#

Ron Bailey writes, "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that since 1976, when national measuring began, levels of ozone in the air have dropped 31 percent, sulfur dioxides are down 72 percent, nitrogen dioxide was cut by 42 percent, carbon dioxide plunged 76 percent, and particulates (smoke and dust) fell by 31 percent."

That should be carbon MONoxide.