James M. Taylor Senior Fellow	Joseph L. Bast President

Welcome to the Common-Sense Environmentalism Issue Suite, a comprehensive resource for people who support a common-sense approach to protecting the environment.

To the left of this essay are links to Environment & Climate News, The Heartland Institute’s national outreach publication of the free-market environmentalism movement; Heartland Policy Studies, peer-reviewed original research on environment topics; Research & Commentaries, collections of the best available research on hot topics in the environmental protection debate; Heartland books and booklets on environment; bios and contact information for experts on environmental issues who work with The Heartland Institute; and to comprehensive directories of individuals who oppose global warming alarmism and organizations in the U.S. that support free-market environmentalism.

Below those links is a “What’s New” feature that presents titles, short reviews, and links to research and commentary on environmental issues most recently posted on Heartland’s Web site. This list is continuously updated, so we hope you’ll check it regularly.

Under those links is a list of subtopics that appear under the “Environment ” topic in PolicyBot, the database and search engine that resides on The Heartland Institute’s Web site. You can click on any one of those subtopics and see the titles, authors, date of publication, and short reviews of credible research and commentary from a wide range of sources. Then just click to open and read the entire article. PolicyBot is free, easy to use, and fast.

The essay below presents an overview of the debate over environmental protection taking place today. It contains links to individual articles and subtopics in PolicyBot, so the reader can go into much deeper depth on the issues the authors address.

What is Common-Sense Environmentalism?

Common-sense environmentalism recognizes that almost everyone today is an environmentalist. We all want a healthy, green environment for ourselves and our families. What distinguishes common-sense environmentalism from more extreme environmental activism is a commitment to fight real environmental problems rather than imagined ones and a realization that free markets are an ally rather than an enemy of environmental stewardship.

Common-sense environmentalists recognize that environmental scares are frequently unsupported by sound science and are often launched to further an anti-corporation, anti-free market agenda. Activists use junk science to stampede the public into fearing chemicals in the air, food, and water, and the possible consequences of poorly understood phenomena such as climate change.

The best way to achieve a healthy and green environment is to use sound science to distinguish real environmental issues from imaginary ones, and then to tap the efficiency of market forces to address the environmental issues that truly do exist. This enables us to prioritize environmental and public health problems the first step in any serious effort to address a problem and to solve problems without trampling on other things we value, such as individual freedom and economic prosperity.

Air Pollution

Despite what you may hear in the media, air quality in the U.S. is improving dramatically. Air pollution is no longer a significant threat to public health. New laws to reduce the amount of soot and ground-level ozone are unnecessary and will be prohibitively expensive. Clean air debates should not focus on how much further air pollution ought to be reduced--“chasing the last molecule”--but rather on the most efficient means of continuing the progress that is already taking place.

Global Warming

Global warming is a prime example of the alarmism that characterizes much of the environmental movement. Media coverage of the topic is heavily slanted toward alarmism because “bad news sells,” making it difficult for climate realists to get a fair hearing. Al Gore’s recent movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” has been severely critiqued by many experts, yet it is being shown in high schools across the country as an educational documentary.

Climate science reveals that the world has warmed about 1 degree C during the past century, with half of that warming occurring before human emissions could have been responsible. Even if human activity is responsible for 100 percent of the warming since 1940, it is only about 0.5 degrees C., an amount so small it is within the error range of the instruments used to measure global temperatures.

There is no consensus about the causes, effects, or future rate of global warming. Most climate scientists doubt the reliability of computer models and the accuracy of land-based temperature records Reports by the IPCC are unreliable due to political editing and rewriting of the reports’ conclusions. Some of the key evidence cited in past IPCC reports has been shown to be fraudulent.

There is also disagreement over what to do about global warming. Economists believe the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty intended to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions, would cost its participants trillions of dollars while having little or not effect on the global climate. Meanwhile, the federal and state governments debate and pass legislation that will be similarly futile.

Many experts call for adaptation--making small changes to infrastructure and lifestyles to accommodate a slightly warmer world--rather than spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reduce emissions. Carbon sequestration could also play a role in responding to climate change.

All of the supposed catastrophic effects of global warming have been rebutted by scientists, including melting ice, hurricanes, other extreme weather, and extinction of wildlife.

An increasing number of experts believe the recent warming is due to natural cycles driven by variability in solar radiation.

Reliable experts on climate change include Patrick Michaels, S. Fred Singer, and Sallie Baliunas. Non-scientists who have rebutted climate alarmism include the late novelist Michael Crichton and Sen. James Inhofe.

For more information about global warming, go to Global Warming Facts, a Web site created by The Heartland Institute that focuses just on this issue.

Toxic Chemicals

Prior to the global panic over global warming, fear of “toxic chemicals” topped the agenda of many environmental activist groups. But here again we find a reliance on junk science, disregard for the cost of regulation or the risks created unintentionally by regulations, and a willingness to violate individual freedom and private property rights. The nation’s major federal law concerning toxic waste--Superfund--has been an expensive failure.

Over the years, environmental groups have launched campaigns against asbestos, dioxin, lead, mercury, pesticides, PCBs, chlorine, and endocrine disrupters. In every case, later research found the threats had been vastly exaggerated, and that public policies were adopted that cost far more than any benefits they created.

The key insight that environmental advocates, and the media that gives them sympathetic coverage, overlook is the First Law of Toxicology: The dose makes the poison. Many “toxic” chemicals are not dangerous if the level of exposure is below a threshold where physical affects can be observed, while many “harmless” chemicals can be deadly if we are exposed to too much of them. Many public health scares about chemicals are the result of overlooking this simple but important fact.

Free-Market Solutions

It is no accident that wealthy countries have made the most progress toward sustainable development. When people are forced to choose between food, clothing, shelter, medicine, or a green environment, a green environment becomes a luxury item. The best way to ensure effective stewardship of the environment is to encourage the development of wealth that makes environmental stewardship possible.

Free market solutions to environmental protection focus on relying on markets and private property rights to create incentives to protect the environment. Free-market environmentalism is the opposite of the top-down government regulation favored by many environmental advocacy groups.

Risk assessment, while not in itself a free-market idea, is an important tool in overcoming many of the biases and errors of relying on government bureaucracies to protect the environment. Understanding the costs and benefits of regulations, and comparing the risks of action versus inaction, are fundamental building-blocks of common-sense environmentalism. The fact that government agencies do these things very poorly or not at all is a strong argument in favor of free-market environmentalism.

Links to Other Resources

The Heartland Institute is not alone in providing information on common-sense environmentalism. Other good sources include:

World Climate Report--Dr. Patrick Michaels, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, presents a comprehensive, concise, and hard-hitting overview of global warming science. World Climate Report is categorized by date and topic, and provides citations to the current scientific literature.

Science and Environmental Policy Project--Atmospheric physicist Dr. S. Fred Singer, Distinguished Research Professor at George Mason University and professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia, presents a weekly update on the latest global warming news.

CO2 Science--Dr. Craig Idso, a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Meteorological Society, and the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Sciences, presents a weekly review of the scientific literature regarding global warming issues. CO2 Science also provides historical temperature data from weather stations throughout the U.S.

Climate Audit--Geologist Steve McIntyre, who played a key role in exposing flaws in Michael Mann’s “hockey stick” graph purporting to show unprecedented recent warming, provides near-daily updates on the latest scientific data and literature regarding global warming.

Prometheus--Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., a professor in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado, provides daily news and commentary on science policy regarding a wide variety of issues.

Center for Science and Public Policy--The Center for Science and Public Policy (CSPP) relies on scientific experts in many nations and the vast body of peer-reviewed literature to help lawmakers, policymakers, and the media distinguish between scientific findings that are agenda-driven and those that are based on accepted scientific methods and practices. The Center's Science Watch Team alerts policymakers, the media, and the public to unreliable scientific claims and unjustified alarmism which often lead to public harm.

Committee for a Constructive Tommorrow (CFACT)--CFACT’s E-FACT Report will keep you up to date on all the environmental issues that matter to you.

CCNet--Benny Peiser’s CCNet newsletter aims to disseminate information and foster debate about all aspects of “neo-catastrophism,” with particular focus on NEOs, the impact hazard and climate change. Among the newsletter’s almost 4,000 subscribers are more than 800 astronomers and researchers who work in almost every field of planetary and Earth sciences, but also many hundreds of science writers, columnists, policymakers and news editors from media outlets around the globe.