The environment

[John Dibble]

Agree to an extent - some corporations can, some can't. Somewhat depends on what they produce and who they cater to. If their primary customer base is, say, hippies, they will do their best to maintain an environmentally friendly reputation. Another factor is who is running the company - I'm sure some companies are run by environmentalists.

However, privately run groups can be trusted, especially when their objective is to protect the environment. The Libertarian Party has in interesting article on free-market environmentalism here: http://www.lp.org/lpnews/0411/libertarian-solution.html

[John Dibble]

Strongly agree.

Corporations can't be trusted because consumers can't be trusted.  Even if each tissue chopped down a rainforest, you can bet that at least 10% of consumers would buy those tissues if they were  50 cents cheaper.  In addition, the consumer body at large won't react to environmental issues until they've already crossed the line into a crisis.  Government action and environmental regulations are thus needed.

I'm not militant about this, I'm just a skeptic of the free market.  I'm in favor of drilling in ANWR and off all of the US Coastlines, so I think I'm fairly moderate on the environment issue.

That's pretty much consistent with what I said earlier. Some corporations can be trusted with the environment because the customers they pander to are environmentalists. But other than that yes, they'll pollute if it's profitable and legal.