Things Are Better Than We Think; J. S. Shaw

Furthermore, current information casts doubt on worries about the future. Most of the nonrenewable resources that people feared would skyrocket in price, materials like copper and tungsten, are cheaper than they were ten years ago. And in spite of two decades of worry about energy, the world is awash in oil. Although human beings may be having an effect on the climate, careful study of these issues indicates that the impacts are likely to be modest. The ozone layer is not being ripped apart by floating chemicals; even if there has been five percent depletion, as some pessimists suggest (and no one is Jane S. Shaw is a Senior Associate of the Political Economy Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana. sure), the loss has about as much impact on skin cancer as moving south sixty miles, for example from Palm Beach to Miami.! Fear of global warming is based on computer models of climate that are so inadequate that they are essentially speculation. 2 And recent satellite studies of the Amazon sug gest that the rate of deforestation may be about one-fifth of what scientists previously thought. 3 The fact is that the environment in the United States is generally a healthy one, and the alarms about global problems (defores tation, ozone, the greenhouse effect) are exaggerated.