In the Environmental alphabet Russell Lewis talks about a number of key environmental issues including causes and effects.
The Market in Environment
The environmental challenges which we face do not require a wholesale realignment of our economies. Rather, they require an extension of the legal principles of capitalism. Property rights can be extended to presently unowned resources. Where this solution is impractical, market-mimicking policy rules (eg, effluent charges or marketable pollution permits) may be used to force polluters to take into account the social costs of their production processes. In short, the market can and should be extended to areas where it is presently absent.
Despite widespread belief to the contrary, a market economy and a clean environment are not mutually exclusive. This report, by offering market solution to market failures, will attempt to dispel this misconception and provide a sound theoretical and policy basis for market environmentalism.
Read the full paper here.
Green Machines
There is a neo-puritan strain running through parts of modern society which urges us to live more simply. Looking longingly back to easier and quieter times, it urges us to learn to do without the motor car and the conveniences it brings. This view is sometimes expressed as an aversion not onlyto automobiles, but to economic growth itself. It sees modern technology as the source of insuperable problems, and urges us to dismount the tiger which we have by the tail.
This report derives from the alternative view that the problems derive not from surfeit of modern technology, but a deficiency of it. It seeks to explore how a more advanced technology of a lower level. It endeavours to apply the problem-solving techniques of public policy in order to accelerate the development of a technology which brings answers instead of problems.
The solution looked for is not one which seeks to banish the automobile, but one which seeks to tame it, to humanize it, to make it an acceptable companion of our cities.
Read the full paper here.
Fast Track Forward
High speed rail networks across continental Europe are developing rapidly, with the liberalisation of Eastern Europe and the unification of Germany. With the French Railways (SNCF) and German Railways (Bundesbahn) looking to expand eastwards. Britain risks being left on the sidelines as an island nation. It must look for innovative ways to rejoin Europe with high speed rail. The Labour Party's policy document "Moving Britain Into Europe - A high speed future for transport" is one possible way of bridging the gap. This paper critically analyses Labour's proposals, examines the controversy surrounding the fixed link, suggests policies for a high speed UK rail network and develops two sets of proposals for high speed services to Europe. It is also calling Government to implement feasibility studies on such proposals or to put forward its own alternatives.
Read the full paper here
Streets Ahead
This report by Nick Elliott shows how people in parts of the UK, the US and many other countries have given up on failing local services and take over the management of their own streets - leading to better services, calmer and safer traffic, and falling crime.
Read it here.
Track to the Future
This paper restates the case for privatization, evaluates the three proposals on the table and makes final proposals to form the basis of legislation. The book also updates material from the Right Lines whilst looking at the possible privatization of The London and Glasgow Underground systems, the Dockland Light Railway and the Tyne and Wear Metro system. Some wider aspects of a free market in transport are also addressed.
Read it here.
The Right Lines
The Adam Smith Institute envisages a two-stage sale of British Rail: the track and terminals privatized as a complete unit, and then the individual services which run on the track..
Read the full paper here.
An Environment for Growth
How to develop the rural landscape whilst still protecting the environment? This was the question that was answered at an ASI Seminar in 1987, including speakers such as Brian Waters, Boisot Waters Cohen Partnership, Professor Alan Evans of The University of Reading and John Ardill of The Guardian, amongst others. The report sets out regulatory ideas that would allow for development on the green belt, and an easing of the planning laws to allow new building to take place.
Why Wasteland
Land is our greatest asset. It is the most fundamental generator of wealth for it's necessary to all forms of economic activity. Furthermore, it increases in value with any improvement, urbanisation, population increases or local infrastructure provision. Green gold indeed!
Read the full paper here.
The Debate on Bus Deregulation
Dr Hibbs argues for constraints upon the 'twin evils' that might be expected to arise in an unregulated market - the fly-by-night operator seeking a quick profit, and the large undertaking 'competing to kill' and thus stifling initiative and innovation, but adds the proviso that it might be possible to dismantle even these constraints after a period of adjustment.