Designing Smart Regulation

One of the crucial issues of our time is how to avoid serious, and perhaps cataclysmic, damage to the natural environment. The causes of such damage are both complex and controversial, and arise from a wide variety of social and economic pressures. The results, however, are more readily apparent. The evidence that pollution, land degradation, de-forestation, ozone depletion, climate change, and the loss of biological diversity are inflicting serious and in some cases irreversible damage to the planet which sustains us, is increasingly compelling. Indeed, it is arguable that the window of opportunity for averting major ecological disaster is a rapidly shrinking one, and that, in some cases, it may already be too late to prevent ongoing environmental degradation.