03/05/2005 3:21:29 pm
Capitalism Makes the World Greener. We who were born in the 70s have been taught that the planet?s environment is going to be destroyed. All of this was said to be the result of capitalism, growth and production in general. The conclusion was that, in order to save the planet, we need to reverse the development. Less growth, less production and less capitalism. Governments and politicians had to regulate and run our lives, just to save us, it was claimed. This image of reality is still with us, but strong evidence have been presented in recent years, which show that the world is getting better, not worse. One person in the foreground is of course Björn Lomborg. And the American Enterprise Institute and Pacific Research Institute have an Index of Leading Environmental Indicators. From the edition of 2005, we can see, for example, the following:

"The Index finds that ?air pollution fell again in the United States to its lowest level ever recorded.? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that since 1976, when national measuring began, levels of ozone in the air have dropped 31 percent, sulfur dioxides are down 72 percent, nitrogen dioxide was cut by 42 percent, carbon dioxide plunged 76 percent, and particulates (smoke and dust) fell by 31 percent. Air quality in the 10 largest metropolitan areas (four of the five most improved are in California) has improved an average of 53 percent since 1980.
The long-term trend in toxics being released into the environment is also positive, dropping by 55 percent since 1988. Despite ongoing suburbanization, between 1990 and 2000, U.S. forests expanded by more than 10 million acres. The Index notes that ?for the eastern half of the United States, land cleared for farming and grazing in the 19th century has been reverting back to forestland at a net rate of one million acres a year since 1910.?"

Read more about the Index - >