Columnist: Much of North America and western Europe is more heavily forested and has less acid rain and better air quality now than five decades ago
Though this may be due largely to policies advocated by environmentalists, it nonetheless lends credibility to the claims of people who reject predictions of imminent ecological doom and argue that environmental policies that excessively restrict the use of natural resources may diminish the wealth necessary to adopt and sustain the policies that brought about these improvements
A majority of ecological disasters arise from causes that are beyond human control.