Roger Meiners and Andrew Morriss Editors Since 1970, when the Clean Air Act was passed and the Environmental Protection Agency was created, the primary means for addressing environmental problems in the U.S. has been through comprehensive federal statutes and detailed regulations. Evaluating almost three decades of experience with the Clean Air Act, Superfund, theContinue reading “The Common Law and the Environment:”
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Going With The Flow
Nestled between a national park and a proposed wilderness area and cut through by the beautiful Virgin River, Utah’s Horse Valley Ranch is probably one of the West’s most coveted pieces of real estate. Despite its potential value on the open market, the owners had no desire to create a landscape of ranchettes or endangerContinue reading “Going With The Flow”
Corn Can Do
Plastics made from plants is an idea that scientists have touted for years, but no one was able to bring it to the marketplace. That has changed with an announcement from Cargill Incorporated and Dow Chemical Company. In a joint venture, the firms plan to build a $300 million facility in Blair, Neb., to manufactureContinue reading “Corn Can Do”
Harvesting Toxic Waste
Bananas are growing in a mine drainage tunnel in Leadville, Colo. Along with carrots, spinach, beets, and broccoli, these crops may provide the solution to cleaning up one of the nation’s most polluted Superfund sites. Entrepreneur Frank Burcik, president of Water Treatment and Decontamination International, created the underground greenhouse to remove toxic heavy metals fromContinue reading “Harvesting Toxic Waste”
Old Growth Rising
Breaching the Edwards Dam on Maine’s Kennebec River last July to help fish had an unexpected benefit for furniture-makers, wood craftsmen, architects, musical instrument-makers, and even pen-makers. Old growth timbers have been salvaged from the dam’s foundation for use in a host of wood products. Most of the trees were taken from the Maine woodsContinue reading “Old Growth Rising”
Greening Nepal
Once-denuded slopes in the foothills of the Himalayas are showing signs of green again. In Nepal, local community groups are managing the forests, deriving income from the timber, and also protecting watersheds and a variety of rare birds, mammals, and flowering plants. In 1957, the government nationalized the forests, but it had neither the willContinue reading “Greening Nepal”
Poverty, Wealth, and Waste
In 1986, a waste-to-energy plant opened in Delhi, India, financed by the Danish International Development Agency at a cost of over $10 million. The plant was expected to generate 3.8 megawatts of electricity from garbage, and its success was to be copied in other Indian cities. However, the plant was a failure. Two yearsContinue reading “Poverty, Wealth, and Waste”
The Greening of U.S. Foreign Policy
Terry L. Anderson and Henry I. Miller, M.D. Editors Since then Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s announcement in 1996 of an increased emphasis on environmental issues, the environmental movement has moved the policy agenda beyond local and even national boundaries into the foreign policy debate. In this book, a group of scholars takes a hardContinue reading “The Greening of U.S. Foreign Policy”
No ‘Commercialization’ of Yellowstone
Tiny microbes living in the mud-pots and geysers of Yellowstone National Park have sparked a mammoth controversy. Scientists think the genetic materials of these microbes could lead to medical breakthroughs or, at the very least, improve consumer products. In 1997, park officials signed an agreement with a corporation that had previously been prospecting the microbesContinue reading “No ‘Commercialization’ of Yellowstone”
The Lone Mountain Coalition
Jonathan Adler Arlington, Virginia Ryan Amacher, Ph.D. Department of Economics University of Texas, Arlington Terry Anderson, Ph.D. PERC/Hoover Institution Bozeman, Montana Angela Antonelli The Heritage Foundation Washington, DC John A. Baden, Ph.D. Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment (FREE) Bozeman, Montana Michael B. Barkey Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and LibertyContinue reading “The Lone Mountain Coalition”