Posted by
PeterE on Thursday, August 23, 2007 1:40:33 PM
Mr. Tyrell writes today on the poor predictive record of environmentalists. And his bloggers clearly agree. But is that the whole story? Should we just discount environmentalists as nutcases?
It strikes me that environmentalism has been remarkably successful politically, and that for good reason. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the environment is something that was left out of every business's accounting system until very recently - which now attempts to incorporate these long term external costs.
While it is true that the market is usually the best means of solving environmental problems, it is also true that they would not register as problems if it were not for people with senses to hear, smell and see and the political rights to agitate.
Yes, we have a better environment now than we have had for ever, I would guess, but environmentalists are partly to thank for that. We just have to separate the hysteria from the common sense.