Terry L. Anderson writes
….Thanks largely to the pioneering work of the late economist Julian Simon and, more recently, to the work of statistician Bjørn Lomborg, abundant data show that we are not running out of resources, that we are not destroying our environment, and that the plight of human beings is improving rather than diminishing. Simon’s confidence in challenging Ehrlich’s pessimistic thinking came from his belief that people respond to scarcity by conserving on scarcer resources and by reducing waste and hence pollution.
Doubting Simon’s logic and data, Bjørn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist, set out to prove him wrong by examining reams of data on various environmental claims…..
Read more at Environmental Quality: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics | Library of Economics and Liberty.
Ah Mr Lomboirg. As far as I read , all his data points in one direction and the official figures of death from pollution in China must be communist state propaganda.!
Here I thought news that the world is not coming to an end would cheer everyone up. 🙂
On another note, the article notes a correlation between Income and Improved environmental protection. Correlation shows nothing about causality though, and I would prefer to think it is the people that do the most to protect their environment that have the highest incomes.
Note also that most of the improvements mentioned were brought about by government regulations (quickly crosses himself at such blasphemy).
Good point. Higher incomes can afford higher environmental standards.