U.S. population has grown since 1980, yet pollution rates either haven't moved or are falling. buff.ly/1ILu7RM http://t.co/PXriaKlsZO—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) August 14, 2015
How is the environment going under the ravages of 21st century capitalism
22 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, politics - USA Tags: doomsday prophecies, doomsday prophets, environmental law, environmental protection, environmental regulation, free market environmentalism, green scaremongering, tear pollution, The Great Escape, The Great Fact, water pollution
Environmental Law 101 | Richard Epstein
05 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, law and economics, liberalism, property rights, Richard Epstein Tags: environmental law, law of nuisance, Richard Epstein, tort law
Back in 1999, Richard Epstein wrote a great summary of what should be environmental law from an old common law perspective, from a classical liberal perspective, and a pragmatic economic libertarian perspective:
Stated bluntly, nothing in the theory of property rights says that my property is sacred while everybody else’s property is profane. That single constraint of parity among owners should lead every owner to think hard…
This recognition of the noxious uses of private property is the source of the common law of nuisance.
That law dates from medieval times, certainly by 1215, at the time of the Magna Carta. It is no new socialist or environmentalist creation for the twentieth century.
When the common law of nuisance restricts the noxious use of property, it benefits not only immediate neighbours but the larger community. If I enjoin pollution created by my neighbour, others will share in the reduction of pollution.
Simply by using private actions, we have built a system for environmental protection that goes a long way toward stopping the worst forms of pollution.
Epstein does not stop there. He recognises as he should that the common law of nuisance is not enough to stop all problems of pollution:
Yet before we leap for joy, we must recognize that private actions are not universally effective in curbing nuisances.
Sometimes pollution is widely diffused—waste can come from many tailpipes, not just one—so that no one can tell exactly whose pollution is causing what damage to which individuals.
Under those circumstances, private enforcement of nuisance law can no longer control pollution…
We do not change the substantive standards of right and wrong, but we do use state regulation to fill in the gaps in private enforcement.
Epstein then makes a plea for private covenants to deal with a great deal of the social frictions that arise in the suburbs:
But often when individuals worry about their local environments, they’re not particularly happy to treat the nuisance law, however enforced, as the upper bound of their personal protection.
They want (especially as their wealth increases) more by way of aesthetics and open spaces. Fortunately, our legal system has a way to accommodate these newer demands.
One of our most important land-use control devices is the system of covenants by which all the holders of neighbouring lands agree among themselves and for their successors in title
Covenants might work in Greenfields developments in modern cities. But they really doesn’t work in managing land use conflicts in the inner city where regulation is been used to substitute the covenants for many decades.
Epstein’s ideal for modern environmental law is:
In sum, the system of public and private enforcement of nuisances and public and private purchases of environmentally sensitive sites is the way that sound environmental policy should proceed.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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