ABSTRACT

Sustainability has numerous implications for a conservative approach to environmental and resource policies. There are many issues here that are important and even compelling—numerous ways in which American economy is not sustainable. This chapter considers three examples of the problems American are creating for the future and the kinds of actions conservatives could advocate correcting them. In the collapse of fisheries all over the world we see a classic example of a "tragedy of the commons". A conservative solution to this tragedy of the commons is to eliminate open access to fisheries and establish property rights in them. These rights would take the form of individual tradable quotas (ITQs) that would give their owners rights to set portions of the annual catch from a specified fishery. The best-known restoration project currently under way is in the Everglades. Government creates artificial marshes around the agricultural area, which filters pollutants before the water reaches the Everglades.