OPINION/COMMENTARY

Who has a right to your property?

The reader assumes that property rights attached to ownership arise from the "payment to the community of its annual rental value."

Property rights do not arise from the "community" or from the government. The right to hold and use property is endowed by the Creator. Every member of every species has the right to claim, hold and use any land – until a more powerful competitor takes it. This is the undeniable law of nature.

For centuries, humans claimed, held and used land like all other animals – until a more powerful competitor took it. Over time, people devised ways to claim, hold and convey land without bloodshed. In most of the world, the patriarch, and later the king, was accepted as the owner of the land and entitled to dictate how it would be used and by whom....

Suburban Development Benefits Wildlife

A decade ago, who would have thought New Jersey would host a black bear hunt--the first in 33 years? Or that Virginia, whose population of bald eagles was once down to 32 breeding pairs, would have 329 known active bald eagle nests? Who would have expected Metropolitan Home magazine to be advising its readers about ornamental grasses to keep away white-tailed deer, now found in the millions around the country?

Such incidents illustrate a transformed America. This nation, often condemned for being crowded, paved over, and studded with nature-strangling shopping malls, is proving to be a haven for wild animals.

One interpretation of these events is that people are moving closer to wilderness and invading the territory of wild animals. But that is only a small part of the story. Wild animals increasingly find suburban life in the United States to be attractive.

The proliferation of wildlife should assure Americans that the claim that urban sprawl is wiping out wildlife is simply poppycock. Human settlement in the early twenty-first century may be sprawling and suburban--about half the people in this country live in suburbs--but it is more compatible with wildlife than most people think....

Wetlands Case Proves Need to Curtail Abuse

Federal officials had little evidence to go on, but that didn’t stop them from prosecuting John Rapanos for moving dirt around his Bay County, Michigan property. It’s a case that illustrates just how arbitrary — and perhaps unconstitutional — the regulation of “wetlands” has become.

The case dates to 1989, when the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) dispatched a rookie agent without a search warrant to inspect the Rapanos field. Months before the unannounced visit, Mr. Rapanos had contracted for the removal of trees and brush from his property.

The DNR ordered Mr. Rapanos to cease all work on the land, and referred the case to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Both agencies exercise authority over “navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act, which makes no mention of “wetlands.”

In this case, the nearest “navigable” water is some 20 miles from the Rapanos land. Nonetheless, the feds filed charges against Mr. Rapanos for “polluting” the wetlands by leveling his soil....

The Greening of Higher Education

This May a conference in New York City titled Integrating Environmental Ethics into Environmental Studies: Ethics, Science, and Civic Responsibility will bring together faculty from higher education institutions to discuss how they can "incorporate an understanding of environmental ethics and values into their research and teaching". The conference sponsors -- the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, the Center for Humans and Nature, and the Environmental Conservation Education Program at New York University -- suggest that current environmental science courses in colleges and universities that combine scientific knowledge with an awareness of geographic, cultural, political and economic realities, have neglected the ethical dimensions of environmental issues. One of the conference objectives will be to develop "ecological citizenship" as a component of environmental science. Ecological citizenship, they propose, extends the idea of public engagement to obligate students to take an active interest in environmental issues.

Another project, Second Nature (also supported by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching), seeks to extend environmental ethics across the whole higher education curriculum. It describes its mission thus: to make the principles of environmental sustainability central to the curriculum of the nation's colleges and universities. Sustainability (not compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs) may mean different things to different people, but in practice it frequently means putting environmental concerns above human needs....

Sympathy for the Mosquito?

"Save Our Mosquitoes," isn't a plea one expects to see these days with the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus killing hundreds and making thousands of people sick. But someone posted that very appeal on a sign in Chargin Falls, Ohio. These "poor bugs" were indeed at risk as the town was debating whether to spray pesticides that year. Residents decided to show their mercy; they gave the mosquitoes a stay of execution. No spraying in 2002.

Discovered by an official from the local department of health, the sign shows how bizarre the debate about mosquito spraying has become. While it makes good sense for every community to consider all the facts about spraying, few of these debates have been focused on any rational discussion. Instead, debates have become subject to misinformation campaigns and hysteria.

Radical environmental activists have been leading the pack, making a host of unsupported claims about the risks associated with pesticides. While some might sympathize with plight of the mosquito, the anti-pesticide crowd has shown little concern for those humans suffering from the sometimes deadly, and often debilitating, virus transmitted by the bugs.

In the past, these groups have downplayed the risks by pointing out that the illness only kills the elderly, the sick, and children—as if that offered any comfort! However, it isn't even true. In 2003, the median age of those who died from the virus was 47 years with a range of 1 month to 99 years old....

Fresh Ideas for Salt Water Leave Some With Bad Taste

Samuel Taylor Coleridge framed the matter memorably in his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" when he wrote: "Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink." Although the seas are home to many good things to eat, the salty brine making up so much of the Earth's surface has a major drawback. In a thirsty world, seawater is unfit for human consumption. But the idea of purifying salt water on a grand scale is less a dream than it was in years past.

As pointed out by the Heartland Institute, desalination has long been "technologically feasible." It also has been prohibitively expensive, but advances in technology are bringing costs down. In California, where water has long been a precious resource, a private-enterprise venture is converting salt water used as coolant at the Encina Power Station in San Diego County into fresh water. The project ultimately could provide 9 percent of the water used by county residents. Of course, the project has its critics.

The Sierra Club and other conservation groups have raised issues ranging from objections about putting the project in the hands of for-profit private enterprise to concerns about fish being sucked into the intake area. Mark Massara of the Sierra Club told Great Britain's Guardian newspaper that another concern is population growth. Solving Southern California's water crisis might accelerate development in an area that many consider overcrowded as it is....

Energy Bill Debate Confirms Trial Lawyer Influence

Among the most divisive issues in the current session of Congress is the energy bill, which failed last November in the face of a Democratic filibuster backed by a handful of Republican fiscal conservatives.

Although GOP opponents worried about unnecessary spending, Democrats targeted one of the legislation's few worthwhile provisions: limiting legal liability for producers of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE).

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota), who lobbied for increased subsidies for already heavily subsidized ethanol producers, offered to deliver the necessary Democratic votes for passage if the MTBE protection were removed.

MTBE is a fuel additive used for gasoline. Its sales took off after 1990, when Congress mandated the use of oxygenates in gasoline to reduce smog. At the time, legislators thought they were providing yet another preference for ethanol, one of the most economically pampered interests in Washington. But MTBE proved to be the superior product....

The Endangered Species Act: Bad for People, Bad for Wildlife

In the 30 years since its enactment, the Endangered Species Act has emerged as one of the most powerful, and ineffective, environmental statutes on the books.

Of the some 1,260 species listed as "endangered" or "threatened" under the ESA, fewer than 30 have been taken off the list. And this is even worse than it looks. Some species were removed from the list because they became extinct; others, like the American alligator, were taken off because it was determined they were never endangered in the first place.

These meager results, however, are not the worst aspect of the ESA. In rural America, far away from urban skyscrapers and suburban malls, the ESA has imposed severe land-use restrictions on property owners. Farmers, ranchers, and other landowners who harbor endangered species on their property often lose the economic use of their land. In effect, they are punished for creating the very habitat endangered species need to survive.

Typical of the havoc the ESA has wreaked in rural America is the case of Ben Cone, Jr., whose father purchased 8,000 acres of timberless land on the Black River in North Carolina. Cone replanted the property with pines, carried out prescribed burns to control undergrowth, and selectively thinned his trees every few years to pay his property taxes and to turn a profit on his labor. Over time, his pines grew to such a height that they attracted the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, which brought him into direct conflict with the ESA....

Environmental Web Site Removes an Ad It Deems at Philosophical Odds

The banner advertisement from the Pacific Research Institute did not remain on the Web site of E/The Environmental Magazine for long. Posted a little before 9 a.m. on April 30, the notice was gone by 1:15 p.m.

The reason for the abrupt disappearance is that the institute receives money from the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation, groups whose conservative orientation is so pronounced that their names are anathema to many environmental groups. The magazine, published by the Earth Action Network, a nonprofit group, told the institute's advertising agency in an e-mail message that "the interests of those funding P.R.I. and their environmental policies are at odd with our criteria for accepting advertising.''

The online ad, and a now-canceled print advertisement scheduled for publication in the July-August edition, promoted a report sponsored by the institute and the American Enterprise Institute, another conservative organization, titled "Index of Leading Economic Indicators."....

Adolf Lomborg?

In the light of this well-established argument, what, then, are we to make of the recent extraordinary remarks of Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)? He compared Bjørn Lomborg, Danish statistician and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, to Adolf Hitler in an interview with Jyllandsposten, a leading Danish newspaper (published April 21).

Pachauri said, "What is the difference between Lomborg's view of humanity and Hitler's? You cannot treat people like cattle. You must respect the diversity of cultures on earth. Lomborg thinks of people like numbers. He thinks it would be cheaper just to evacuate people from the Maldives, rather than trying to prevent world sea levels from rising so that island groups like the Maldives or Tuvalu just disappear into the sea. But where's the respect for people in that? People have a right to live and die in the place where their forefathers have lived and died. If you were to accept Lomborg's way of thinking, then maybe what Hitler did was the right thing."

The Skeptical Environmentalist's longest chapter is devoted to global warming. In it, Lomborg accepts the IPCC's scientific assessment reports as the basis of his analysis. What Pachauri apparently objects to is that Lomborg concludes that the Kyoto Protocol would do almost nothing to reduce the rate of global warming, but at enormous expense. For a fraction of the costs of Kyoto, many pressing environmental problems afflicting poor countries could be addressed....