You Have to Admit It’s Getting Better

(You can read excerpts from this book on the Amazon website)

You can also order a copy from Laissez Faire Books (www.lfb.com). Here is some information about the book from the LFB website. And comments below are student reviews from IES-Europe seminars.
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From Economic Prosperity to Environmental Quality
edited by Terry L. Anderson
Hoover Institution Press, 2004, paperback

What the doomsayers don’t want you to know

Okay. Maybe nobody has to admit it. But as the contributors to this volume show, things really are getting better. For example, they explain why economic growth and environmental quality are hardly opposites — and why the institutions of a free society like property rights, the rule of law, and limited government are exactly what you need to promote both. Plus:

* How international trade can improve environmental quality.

* How exploitation of natural resources and capital formation in fact help the “future generations” that some environmentalists claim we’re shortchanging.

* Why carbon emissions — if they’re a problem at all — will likely prove much less of a problem in richer (freer) countries than in poorer ones.

* Privatization versus rule of law: Milton Friedman’s big mistake. What he says now.

The book also includes a chapter in which “skeptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg confronts critics of his own optimistic book, exposing shoddy statistics and cheap rhetorical tricks.

“With data, extrapolations, and plain evidence, the authors make the case that overall environmental quality is improving. No innovative, specialized, and in some cases alarmist environmental programs or wide-reaching legislation is required to ensure desirable environmental quality…. The essays deal with the major facets of growth-technology, rising standard of living, free trade, laissez-faire economics, and population growth.”
–Midwest Book Review

212 pages