The conventional wisdom is that automobiles (and more generally, the internal combustion engine) have been an environmental cataclysm. Our friend Dwight Lee, writing in yesterday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution (available here) asks the economist’s question: compared to what? Prior to the development of the internal combusion engine, people depended greatly on animal power. Animals produce a lot of pollution and require a lot of cleared land as pasturage. Moving away from animal power seems to be responsible for a large increase in forestation over the last century.
Hat tip: Frank Stephenson.
