Well...let's first ignore the fact that I'M an "environmentalist." I know the type of environmentalist you're talking about. They are wrong. We are NOT destroying the world for money. We're destroying the world for...wait, we aren't destroying the world at all! :-) But the destruction we DO cause is not "for money"...it's because of lack of property rights, and for LACK of money.
The solution to virtually every environmental problem is to: 1) set up a good system of property rights (make sure that SOMEONE owns EVERYTHING, and 2) make people RICH (not poor).
I just read a book called...something like "Shoveling Fuel into a Runaway Train." By Brian Scheck...or something like that. His operating point of view is that the world can't take infinite wealth...that world GDP per capita can't grow forever. He's wrong. Not only CAN GDP per capita grow forever, but the MORE it grows, the better off we'll all be.
Environmentalists have historically been very socialistic. ("Ohhhh...no one can own the earth!") Unfortunately socialism (where the government makes decisions about how land and other resources are managed) is almost always a terrible way to manage resources. The best way--almost always--is to set up private ownership rights, and allow the owners to make the decisions that are in their best interests. The collapse of communism let some environmentalists see how bad community (government) ownership is. Other environmentalists have seen how market-based systems, like sulfur dioxide pollution emission trading, work better than command and control. But there's still a lot of residual distrust/dislike of capitalism, and private property, in the environmental community. That's a shame.
Mark (environmental engineer, Libertarian)
I agree. Throughout this thread I've been outlining a method for assigning property rights to wild fish populations. I'm not sure my method is the best method, or even necessarily a workable method; it's just what came to mind. You seem to know something about the issue; how would you go about turning the wild fish populations into private property?
Nice posts, BTW. Since you've been around since December, 2000, I'm surprised I haven't noticed you before.