I've been celebrating Earth Day by skimming through Steven Hayward's Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, 2006: The Nature and Sources of Ecological Progress in the U.S. and the World put out by the Pacific Research Institute. [get it here]
Hayward's annual report is a devastating critique of the way environmental conditions and programs are mis-represented in the popular press and of the institutions and organizations that promote a distorted view of the subject. He notes in most relevant areas, like air and water quality, there have been enormous gains over the past few decades, but rather than celebrating this progress, environmental activists and their allies in the press and political parties escalate their claims and in the process lose credibility. The result, he argues, is that the environmental movement is on the brink of collapse.
Bracing stuff, and a healthy counter to the pronouncements of environmental extremists. What is most encouraging is that journalists seem to be waking up to the loony excesses of the movement environmentalists and are beginning to take a more reasonable tack, emphasizing the need to make gradual adjustments to a world of oil scarcity and warmer temperatures, rather than trying to halt current trends.
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