Re-Thinking Green Alternatives to Environmental Bureaucracy

Environmental quality has been a major public concern since the first Earth Day in 1970, yet the maze of environmental laws and regulations enacted since then has fostered huge government bureaucracies better known for waste and failure than for innovation and success. Can we do better than this failed environmental bureaucracy? The noted contributors to this volume answer with a resounding "yes." Re-Thinking Greenexposes the myths that have contributed to failed environmental policies and proposes bold alternatives that recognize the power of incentives and the limitations of political and regulatory processes. It addresses some of the most hotly debated environmental issues and shows how entrepreneurship and property rights can be utilized to promote environmental quality and economic growth. Re-Thinking Greenwill challenge readers with new paradigms for resolving environmental problems, stimulate discussion on how best to "humanize" environmental policy, and inspire policymakers to seek effective alternatives to environmental bureaucracy.

Robert Higgs is the author of Competition and Coercion, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, and The Transformation of the American Economy 1865–1914 and the editor of Hazardous to Our Health and Arms, Politics and the Economy. He is a senior fellow in political economy at the Independent Institute and editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal, The Independent Review. He lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. Carl P. Close is the academic affairs director at the Independent Institute and is an assistant editor of The Independent Review. He lives in Oakland, California.