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Book Forum

The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-First Century

(St. Martin’s Press, 2015)

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Date and Time
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Location
Hayek Auditorium
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Featuring
Featuring the author Ronald Bailey, Science Correspondent, Reason magazine; with comments by Indur M. Goklany, Author, The Improving State of the World: Why We’re Living Longer, Healthier, More Comfortable Lives on a Cleaner Planet (Cato Institute, 2007); moderated by Marian L. Tupy Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato Institute.

Throughout the past five decades there have been many forecasts of impending environmental doom. These projections have universally been proven wrong. Those who have bet on human resourcefulness, however„ have almost always been correct. In his book, Bailey provides a detailed examination of the theories, studies, and assumptions currently spurring forecasts of calamity and shaping environmental policy. Breaking down the numbers, he finds that — thanks to human ingenuity and economic progress — many current ecological trends are in fact positive. Cancer rates are falling in America, world population will soon be declining, more and more land is being restored to nature, increasing wealth is leading to decreasing pollution, and the cost of clean energy will soon fall below that of fossil fuels. As Bailey demonstrates, the way to cement these trends is not to retreat into a maze of paralyzing regulation but to craft our own future through continuing economic and technological development.