As we state in the mission statement for our Center for Environmental and Regulatory Reform, our primary work is studying the sources of long-term trends in environmental quality, and exploring how markets, property rights, local action, and private initiative can improve environmental conditions in the U.S. and in the developing world. Public perception about the environment tends to run the gamut from alarm to hysteria. From most of the news headlines, the casual observer would think that we are doing everything wrong, and that nothing is going right. As Gregg Easterbrook wrote in his magisterial book A Moment on the Earth, “Environmental commentary is so fogbound in woe that few people realize measurable improvements have already been made in almost every area.” It is important that environmental trends be more widely understood and appreciated. Apocalyptic discourse makes it impossible to talk sensibly about real, step-by-step actions to improve the environment.

In fact, a great many areas of environmental concern are showing marked improvement. In many other areas, we are unfortunately still operating behind a veil of poor information or uncertain interpretation of facts. As this report has made clear in the past, our national data for water quality are especially weak for trend analysis purposes, and for other areas of concern we lack sufficient data measurements to make good judgments and sound policy decisions. Perhaps the most serious long-term environmental problem in the United States is fragmented habitat; this problem, too, is probably improving at least in some areas, but we need measures to help determine what works and where our scarce resources should be directed for best effect.

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Factsheet