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5
F
E A T U R E
releases since 1988 (and a reduction of 5.4
percent in 1999), a reduction of more than 1.65
billion pounds a year. The chemical industry,
not surprisingly, has shown the largest decrease
of all with a 60-percent reduction in releases
since 1988.
Biodiversity
This year’s Index has a special focus on
“biodiversity” and the loss of wildlife habitat,
two of the most serious environmental
problems facing modern civilization. And these
problems do not lend themselves to ordinary
legislative or regulatory approaches. The
Endangered Species Act is marginally effective,
if at all, while it maximizes political conflict and
economic cost.
The best estimate of the total number of species
worldwide is 12.5 million, and scientists have
identified and named about 1.5 million.
Each year, Pacific Research Institute’s Index of
Leading Environmental Indicators reveals the
good news—environmental quality has been
improving continuously, and in some cases
dramatically, for the past 30 years. In fact,
according to government data, it is the single
greatest success story in American public policy.
While the amount of data available can be
overwhelming, much of it is filtered to the local
level. Motivated and informed citizens acting
to solve local environmental problems are the
wave of the future—civic environmentalism.
So this year’s Index serves as the definitive
consumer’s guide to environmental data. And
PRI’s
website,
www.pacificresearch.org,
provides even more state and local data sources,
including links to other websites and a rating of
the most user-friendly sites.
The 2002 Index also reports on national trends:
Estimates of species extinction vary widely,
from a prediction that 0.7 percent will go
extinct in the next 50 years to the more
dramatic prognosis that 10–40 percent of
existing species are at risk ov