ABSTRACT
The advocates of free market environmentalism are reasonable and recognize that there are limitations in the marketplace as well as in government. Many of the concrete proposals advocated by free market environmentalists are very good ideas that all conservatives can embrace. Free market environmentalism, according to Anderson and Leal, "emphasizes the importance of market processes in determining optimal amounts of resource use". But markets do not determine "optimal" resource use; markets determine the most profitable resource use. Free market environmentalists' Utopian extremism illustrates a most important point for conservatives that have been well developed by John Gray. In the 1980s, he contends, free market libertarians performed a very valuable service in demonstrating the inherent imperfectability of government. In choosing environmental policies, Gray insists that the conservative must face the dilemma libertarians try to avoid through their devotion to the market.
