Writers on the Range March 29, 2005 By Jon Christensen and Terry Anderson One of the most useful, cost-effective methods of conserving land in America is in serious crisis. A series of scandals has revealed major abuses of conservation easements — a legal tool increasingly used to protect private land from development by compensatingContinue reading “How not to fix conservation easements”
Author Archives: admin
Hybrids: Made in the USA?
The vehicles attracting the most attention these days are hybrids-cars that combine a gasoline engine that is used for highway driving and an electric motor operated by an electric battery for slower speeds as well as for sudden acceleration. Although hybrids still represent a small part of the market, Toyota’s Prius has “won someContinue reading “Hybrids: Made in the USA?”
House Of Green
Green building has come in for some hard knocks in recent years as some high-profile projects have proved to be both inefficient and costly. Yet in some areas beneath the radar, green building is creating structures that fulfill their promise. The Building Industry Association of Southwest Washington has designed a program called builtGREEN to helpContinue reading “House Of Green”
Global Warming: A Dialogue
This discussion is an edited version of comments made in December 2004 on the Free Market Environmentalism (FME) Roundtable list-serve. Jonathan Adler prodded his colleagues to forget, for just a minute, the debate over the impacts of warmer temperatures or whether humans are contributing or not. He asked the list-serve members to assume that burningContinue reading “Global Warming: A Dialogue”
Trees to the Rescue
In laboratories around the country, scientists are working to alter the genetic working of trees in order to increase their ability to store carbon, absorb toxins, and resist disease. Most recently, the city of Danbury, Conn., deployed 160 Eastern cottonwood trees to clean a 35-acre site contaminated with mercury that was once used to cureContinue reading “Trees to the Rescue”
Presto Fresh Water
A new technology could make use of excess heat and at the same time produce millions of gallons of fresh water from power plants. The novel idea originated with two professors at the University of Florida, James Klausner and Renwei Mei. What the two academics saw was power plants using huge amounts water for cooling.Continue reading “Presto Fresh Water”
PowerPoint Activism
In many instances, litigation has been the tool of choice for environmentalists seeking to halt everything from logging to subdivisions. But times are changing and more battles are moving from public to private lands. In these cases, environmental crusaders are choosing to wage their skirmishes in corporate boardrooms armed with PowerPoint presentations. They call theirContinue reading “PowerPoint Activism”
Nature Undisturbed
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is broken. Indeed, it was born broken. Enacted in 1973, the act is based on the myth of the balance of nature and, in particular, on a flawed understanding of the biological state of the Americas at the time of Columbus’s arrival. It is not even an endangered speciesContinue reading “Nature Undisturbed”
The Lasater Ranch
Shortgrass prairie, which once extended across vast stretches of the western Great Plains, is largely gone. A Nature Conservancy-owned ranch in Kansas and several National Grasslands on the High Plains, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, preserve remnants. But most has disappeared. Working rancher Dale Lasater is bringing it back. The shortgrass prairie co-evolved withContinue reading “The Lasater Ranch”
Environmentally Responsible
With his 2006 budget, President Bush appears to be championing fiscal responsibility. For environmental policy, this change offers hope for new directions. PERC’s Report Card 2004 on Bush’s environmental policy, issued last fall, evaluated the administration on its success in adopting free market principles such as reliance on markets, support for decentralization, and greater accountabilityContinue reading “Environmentally Responsible”