Two Converse Students Accepted to Prestigious Free Market Environmental Seminar

Casey Addis ’04 and Sarajane LoGuirato ’05 have been invited to take part in the Property and Environmental Research Center (PERC) Free Market Environmentalism Seminar in Bozeman, Montana June 17-24. They will be joining with students from colleges throughout the nation including Dartmouth, Princeton and Auburn.

“PERC really pioneered the phrase free market environmentalism,” said P.J. Hill, senior associate at PERC and economics professor at Wheaton College. “In short, free market environmentalism is a genuine alternative to excessive government control and regulation. Environmental quality can be achieved by managing our resources based on property rights, private initiative and voluntary activity.

“For example, entrance fees to many national parks are normally routed to the U.S. Department of Interior for distribution. We believe that money should stay with the park because the staff members on site know what needs should be addressed.”

An economics and politics double-major, Casey is eager to learn more about free market approaches to environmental problems. “While their intentions may have been good, I do not feel that the federal government has been especially friendly to the environment. And while Americans complain about high gasoline prices, the government has made it very difficult to tap into natural resources that exist in our own country.”

Because she is a history major, Sarajane will go to PERC with a reflective mind-set. “I’m very interested in the way environmental history affects the world we currently live in,” she said. “For example, the way in which the Western states were colonized has had a dramatic effect on the availability of water. Farmers get water at a subsidized rate and use so much that lakes have disappeared.”