10 Reasons to Love the Free Market
6. The free market improves the environment
Recent research from Ian Herzog and Joel Wood examined data from over 100 countries which spanned the course of a decade. In a dataset giving concentrations of fine particulate matter for 105 countries around the world (taken from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators), the 20 countries rated the most economically free by the Economic Freedom of the World index experience much cleaner air quality than the 20 countries with the lowest scores for economic freedom. Indeed, in 2010 the 20 countries that were most economically free had average concentrations of fine particulate matter that were nearly 40% less than the 20 least-free
countries.
The recent example with the drought in California proves the point that when it comes to the environment, the Progressives do much more damage than good. Huge amounts of water had to be reallocated towards protecting the Delta smelt – a three-inch fish on the Endangered Species List. Because of this ruling, thousands of billions of gallons of water were diverted away from farmers in the Central Valley and into the San Francisco Bay – eventually going out into the Pacific Ocean. This man-made drought cost thousands of farm workers their jobs, inflicted up to 40 percent unemployment in certain communities, and caused the water shortage throughout the central part of the state.
