Gong Szeto asks if environmentalism can be compatible with capitalism. The answer clearly is yes. Free market environmentalism explains how free markets can be used to improve the environment.  Rick Stroup describes free market environmentalism here.  Randal O’Toole answers frequently asked questions about free market environmentalism here, and Terry Anderson and Don Leal explain Free Market Environmentalism in this book.

Szeto quotes a writer who endorses recent article by Jared Diamond in the NY Times that excoriates Americans’ excessive consumption. While Jared Diamond may understand the spread of plants across the globe, he doesn’t understand economics. Randal O’Toole explains how Diamond has over exaggerated his numbers. O’Toole concludes:

Can Diamond possibly be unaware that his numbers are wrong? Did he just use GDP or some other measure of wealth and assume that consumption of raw materials was perfectly proportional to that measure? Or is he deliberately exaggerating the problem so as to promote his alarmist prescription?

Diamond’s prescription is, of course, government planning and control, such as what would be required by the Kyoto protocol. A better prescription would be to let markets work: if we really run short of anything, the price will go up, and people will consume less. That way, we won’t have to worry about the arithmetic skills and hidden agendas of the government planners who Diamond wants to empower.