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Title: Small Is Stupid: Blowing the Whistle on the Green by Wilfred Beckerman ISBN: 0-7156-2640-X Publisher: Duckworth Publishing Pub. Date: March, 1995 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $60.00

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Summary: A LEADING CONTRARIAN EXPOSES ENVIRONMENTAL NGOs
Comment: The title of this book of advocacy is a direct reference to Small is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher's seminal work that accelerated, if not precipitated, the Green revolution just over two decades ago. Written by an Oxford don of impeccable credentials, Small is Stupid is a long overdue sequel to his In Defence of Economic Growth, published in 1974. It is devoted mainly to new environmental issues such as climatic change, biodiversity, the concept of sustainable development, the validity of discounting future costs and benefits, the crucial need for economic growth to remedy the pressing problems of the South and why we need not be too concerned with using up finite resources. An economist both numerate and literate, whose interest in the environment is, by his own admission, intermittent, the septuagenarian Wilfred Beckerman would have been in grave danger of being summarily dismissed as a right-wing ultra were it not for his passionate belief in sanity and reason. While this book will certainly raise the hackles of many members of the Green movement, the intention is more towards providing a balanced debate on environmental vis a vis socio-economic development issues.

During the last decade the Green movement, essentially an invention and perhaps, if you believe in a conspiracy theory, instrument of the North, has renewed its attack on the desirability of economic growth, and has been freely shaping world opinion, calling for immediate drastic action to prevent global warming, the exhaustion of raw materials, and the extinction of species. It has gained sympathy and support through its clever manipulation of the (mostly Western-owned) media.

Beckerman fulfills his promise of Blowing the Whistle on the Greens by making use of information previously available only in specialized sources and by presenting the facts in an objective a manner as only a trained economist can. He sets the record straight by revealing the flaws in the Green's alarmist predictions of global environmental catastrophe. Small is Stupid exposes the hollowness of the Green's claim to occupy the moral high ground in environmental policy, and the superficiality of their views on key ethical issues, such as the nature of our obligations to future generations, or the real case for preserving biological diversity.

In the course of his argument Beckerman demonstrates that the fashionable Green slogans of "sustainable development" and the "precautionary principle," oft-repeated parrot fashion by environmental policy-makers, conceal basic confusions, and that their adoption by the world's policy makers as guiding principles would only reduce social welfare in the long term as well as today. Commissions and committees, national and international, have been (and are being) set up to supervise and report on the adoption of these policies, and politicians who fail to pay lip service to them do so at their peril. Environmentalists, many scientists, media commentators, politicians and public figures, all eager to demonstrate their sense of social responsibility, as well as many genuinely concerned members of the public, treat these "guiding principles" with reverential respect without realizing that both are fundamentally flawed. Continued invocation of these catch-phrases can only pressurize governments into hastily devised, inefficient and expensive environmental regulatory policies that usually involve unwarranted intervention in the market place. In many cases, these expensive environmental regulatory policies are measures many developing countries of the South can ill-afford.

Beckerman argues that if "sustainable development" implies that all other components of society's welfare are to be sacrificed in the interests of preserving the environment exactly in the form it happens to be in today, then it is morally indefensible. Similarly, to apply the "precautionary principle" would be simply stupid if it is taken to mean that irrespective of the chances of future loss, the scale of the loss, and the costs of preventing it, one must nevertheless incur those costs. Yet, alarmist environmentalists would have us do this, and more.

Far from imminent global environmental catastrophe, the most serious environmental problems in the world today are local ones, particularly the provision of clean drinking water and decent sanitation in the South and long term economic growth is necessary for their solution. This is a key message of Small is Stupid.

After reading this book, it is easy to see why an organisation like Greenpeace, which is more interested in confronting the establishment with a conflict of values, than in engaging in a rational scientific debate, is now losing credibility in the public's view. Unlike the World Wide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace and other radical Green charities are not interested in pragmatic, co-operative approaches towards resolving environmental issues. Perhaps, it is because they are charities, and therefore dependent on public generosity, that the Greens invariably take the moral high ground in order to extract "guilt money" from a gullible public. With highly emotive issues such as Brent Spar and the Bakun dam project in Sarawak now high on the public's minds, this book is a refreshing dose of sanity and clarity of thought.

By moving away from the Green's agenda and providing a sensible platform for a balanced debate, Small is Stupid is of immense interest and direct relevance to all those involved in development issues. It certainly is must reading for Third World policy makers who need to balance biodiversity and sustainability concerns on the one hand, with poverty alleviation and socio-economic development imperatives on the other. Beckerman advocates the need to ensure the pattern of economic growth is one which best represents the needs and preferences of society as a whole, rather than of particular Green pressure groups. This involves much greater use of economic instruments for reducing pollution to socially optimal levels, and much greater application of economic assessments in environmental decision-making.

An Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, Wilfred Beckerman served as one of the original members of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, from 1970 to 1973.