Media Release - Environmental Policy and Unintended Consequences

When green regulation works—and when it harms the very environment it aims to protect

 

• How the Australian government’s effort to protect local vegetation by destroying the rabbit population on an island near Antarctica backfired and brought the island to the brink of an “ecosystem meltdown” and threatened local bird species with extinction.

• An American subsidy designed to promote the purchase of electric vehicles for the sake of energy conservation was exploited by clever golf cart salesmen who recognized that their products fit under the government’s definition of an electric car. The salesmen began to give away “free” golf carts to consumers, with the entire bill being passed along to the government.

• The subsidization of biofuels such as ethanol have led to the destruction of rainforests, increased greenhouse gas emissions, a wasteful use of freshwater resources, and increases in the price of food that hurt the world’s poor.

• This case study looks at how fuel economy standards for cars increased driving and helped create the SUV boom.

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Related Items:

• Environmental Policy And The Law Of Unintended Consequences (Policy Series)

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The Frontier Centre for Public Policy

is an independent public policy think tank whose mission is "to broaden the debate on our future through public policy research and education and to explore positive changes within our public institutions that support economic growth and opportunity."