In a few days, my mother celebrates her 95th birthday. She was born in the Midwest, went to a small Lutheran college near her parents’ farm, and began teaching in a Lutheran elementary school in 1934. She taught fourth grade for over 40 years before retiring to Holland, Michigan, where she still lives today.

Throughout her life, Mom spent evermore time volunteering for wildlife conservation organizations. In Holland, she volunteered as a reading teacher in a neighborhood elementary school and as a guide in the DeGraaf Nature Center. Mom organized her life around education, conservation, and religion, an admirable pattern indeed.

The seriousness with which Mother approaches her life’s work is reflected in a conversation she recently shared with me. She asked her minister, “Pastor, will there be fourth graders in Heaven? Will there be wild animals?” When he answered in the affirmative, Mom responded, “Good. If there weren’t children to teach and animals to watch, I wouldn’t want to go.”

Given her dedications, it’s no wonder Mother supports FREE’s latest project: conferences bringing environmental analysis to religious leaders. The motivation prompting this new program is religious leaders’ recent discovery and adoption of environmental causes. FREE is inviting these leaders to conferences featuring expert scholars sympathetic to Green goals. Our goal is to help religious leaders understand how to achieve their stewardship goals without being lead astray or squandering the good intentions of their followers.

This won’t be easy. Good intentions, no matter how sincere and how intense, do not alone suffice. Successful reform requires the application of sound science and economics.

Environmental problems are especially difficult to resolve in effective, efficient, and equitable ways because ecological issues are scientifically complex and carry heavy emotional baggage. These are ingredients for error and acrimony. I know of no other policy arena so burdened.

There is wide agreement that climate change, species extinction, water shortages, and atmospheric pollution are serious problems. They exist due to genuine ignorance of how the world works and because individuals don’t adequately consider the consequences their actions have on others. Many problems flow from bad or incomplete information and perverse incentives. Corrections require collective action—and this has huge potential for mischief and worse.

Political opportunism constantly endangers sound policy reform. Green rhetoric often camouflages special interest greed. Ethanol subsidies designed by and written for ADM are obvious examples. And once subsidies are enacted, they spread and are hard to kill. Listen to presidential candidates court Iowa voters with their advocacy of ever larger and broader subsidies. Too often the ecological justifications for these subsidies are disingenuous and sanctimonious.

Some Greens, and not a few politicians, claim we can address environmental problems with little or no sacrifice. In their view, increased efficiencies from innovations will yield savings, or even profits, that trump the cost of adjustments.

Mother knows that this claim is often silliness on stilts. She remembers the necessary deprivations of WWII rationing. If consumer and producer behavior is to be changed through regulations, sacrifice usually follows. It’s dishonest to pretend this away.

Will rich Americans, and the vast majority of us are indeed rich by historical standards, willingly endure diminutions in material goods? Will we accept a $3.00 tax on gasoline, the level often proposed to reduce CO2 and forestall global warming?

Voluntary changes require leadership. Does any national politician have strong ethical standing? Can any lead through moral suasion? I’m afraid not. Religious leaders, however, may have this power. They can harness the Green goodwill of their followers and motivate them to change behavior or support regulations that impose costs and require sacrifice. It is important, though, that they advocate the most effective, efficient, and equitable policies, not those driven by special interests or “consensus science.”

With a lifetime’s experience in conservation, my mother has learned to separate pious hopes from prudent expectations. Fortunately, economic analysis offers a shortcut to her understanding. It is these economic tools for understanding that we offer religious leaders in our Montana conferences. While my mother may not fully understand the economic concepts we employ, she celebrates our goals. And I celebrate her!

America is fortunate to have individuals with her commitment and devotion. Happy 95th Mom!