Free Enterprise Environmentalism

Walter E. Block is Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar endowed chair and professor of economics in the College of Business at Loyola University New Orleans.

• Section I. IntroductionChapter 1. Private Property Rights and EnvironmentalismSection II. WaterChapter 2. Ocean Real EstateSection III. EnergyChapter 3. Nuclear PowerChapter 4. Energy PetitionChapter 5. Oil and Gas StationsSection IV. Property RightsChapter 6. HomesteadingChapter 7. Property in SpaceChapter 8. Land for ParksSection V. Environmental EconomicsChapter 9. ANWRChapter 10. FoodChapter 11. Economics of the EnvironmentChapter 12. PollutionSection VI. Climate; Natural DisastersChapter 13. New Orleans’ FutureChapter 14. Weather SocialismChapter 15. KatrinaChapter 16. Price GougingSection VII. PopulationChapter 17. Armageddon?Chapter 18. Cause of Poverty?Chapter 19. Problem?

Block demonstrates how the basic institutions of a free society -- property rights, markets, and prices -- provide the necessary and sufficient building blocks for successful environmental preservation. And shows that the repeated abject failures of both socialist commons and governmental scientific bureaucratic management are inherently doomed to failure. This is an especially welcome and timely volume given the new Biden administration's plans for a vast expansion of the traditional command-and-control approach to all environmental problems as well as a massive acquisition of well-managed private forestlands, ranchlands, and farmlands.