Environmental Protection: The Surprising Solution

Speakers
Antony Davies,

Release Date
June 10, 2014

Topic

Environmentalism
Description

What do environmental policy, the war on drugs, economics, subsidies and modern music have in common? Learn Liberty professors have addressed all these topics and more.
What sorts of countries cut down all their trees, pollute without thinking, and wipe out their animals? Prof. Antony Davies and many other professors have studied the best way to protect the environment, among other questions with the objective of finding out how to improve society. These professors discuss the sorts of rules that should be instituted to protect our environment. They have found over and again that economic freedom is the best indicator for environmental protection. Economic freedom enables people to make their own decisions, and countries with more economic freedom—rich and poor alike—take the best care of their natural resources. Have you also thought about these questions? Have you wondered how we can make society a better place? You may find the videos and other resources available through Learn Liberty helpful as you consider these issues and many others. “Give us three minutes and an open mind,” Prof. Davies says, “We’ll rock your world.”

Feeling skeptical? Investigate with these Learn Liberty videos that address specific environmental concerns:
1) Recycle Smarter than a Third Grader (video) – Daniel Benjamin explains the nuances of recycling, and why it’s not always the best thing to do
2) Can One Person Save an Endangered Species? See for Yourself. (video)– Laura Huggins goes over an amazing example of how an individual, instead of government, can make the biggest difference in wildlife preservation.
3) Save Our Parks! How to Keep National Parks Open During a Government Shutdown (video) – Holly Fretwell flips common wisdom on its head in this video about making sure the parks we love stay beautiful – and open.
4) Stay tuned! We have another video about environmental law and regulation this August!

Environmental Protection: The Surprising Solution
Antony Davies: What sorts of countries cut down all their trees? What sorts of countries pollute their air? What sorts of countries wantonly kill their animals? There is a lot of variation but on an average there is this underlying theme countries that are more economically free tend to protect their environments. Countries that are less economically free tend to despoil their environments and this isn’t a rich country poor country thing. Even amongst the poor countries those that are more economically free tend to protect their environments more so than the poor countries that are less economically free.
I am Antony Davies Professor of Economics at Duquesne University. I and many other professors work with Learn Liberty asking questions like what is it we can do to help make our world a better place? How is it that we can institute rules that help to protect the environment and time and again we come back to the same answer ‘economic freedom’; more so than any other tool that humans have ever employed economic freedom on average tends to be the tool that best protects the environment.
Join me and many other professors as we ask this question and many other questions about what it is that can help make our world a better place.
Give us 3 minutes of your time and an open mind. We will rock your world.


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