Take back our environment for Earth Day!

How did we let the big government crowd make our environment their ruse de guerre? This Earth Day we call on all people of good sense to retake our environment.

April 22, 2010

by David Rothbard & Craig Rucker

Earth Day is here again. I’m sure we can expect the same old green blarney that sets your teeth on edge. Yet, it would be a shame if we let tired propaganda distract us from some essential truths. We share a passion for America. Conservation is a natural for conservatives. Preserving the beauty of our land is a duty for those of us who love liberty. Passing our country and our planet down to our children, as good or better than we found it is hardwired into our bones. How did we let this sacred obligation be co-opted? How did we let the big government crowd make our environment their ruse de guerre?

Head outside (as we expect you already plan to do). Take to our mountains, forests, rivers, streams and lakes. Set sail on our oceans. You’ll find more than your fair share of people who share your values, reveling with their families in America’s beauty.

In recent years Americans and their allies in the free, developed world have enjoyed significant environmental progress. Our lands are cleaner and greener than they were not long ago. Government deserves part of the credit for our cleaner circumstances for addressing the economic problems of “externality” (transferring production burdens such as pollution to society as a whole) and “the tragedy of the commons” (depleting shared resources). Still more credit is due to the prosperity created through our free market system. Reliable power grids and energy supplies eliminated the need for large-scale dependence on firewood leading to verdant swaths of mature trees all around, populating areas that not long ago were completely bare. The incredible bounty derived from modern agriculture ensures enough food for all, requires less acreage, returns large areas to a wild state and makes hunting a matter of sport, rather than subsistence, permitting a tremendous rebound of wild species.

American conservation and environmentalism gave birth to our state and national parks and gave us the tools to clean up our rivers, air and reign in the litter that once lay all about us. We have much to celebrate.

Sadly, many once constructive environmental organizations later succumbed to radicalism.

Lees hele artikel -> cfact.org