We greens are gearing up to celebrate Earth Day on April 22. I'm afraid the celebration may miss a key to environmental improvement. Let's first consider the assumptions of Earth Day's leaders and then an important omission, the role of environmental entrepreneurship.

It's a full generation since the first celebration, 1970. This event, like the original, is led by Denis Hayes, President of the Bullitt Foundation of Seattle. I know (and like) Denis and believe he typifies his green cohort. He is well educated (Stanford undergrad and law) and surely well intended. With a broader understanding of political economy, however he and his followers would be more effective in achieving environmental goals. Lacking this wisdom, they place too much faith in government and too little in voluntary actions. Their distrust of the potentials of the private sector to generate environmental improvements inhibits their vision and their strategies.

Denis exemplifies traditional environmentalists' failures to anticipate the shortcomings of political management. Ironically, they understand the danger of organized interests harnessing government and operating it as an engine of plunder. Yet, they seem to believe that when their guys and gals come to power, green goodness will prevail. They always bet on "their" next administration with its new huge environmental program. Clinton's tenure should have been an important lesson for these folks--alas, it was not. They don't yet understand that command-and-control systems rarely yield promised results.

Unfortunately, the greens of Denis' generation also denigrate property rights and responsible prosperity. Most of them disdain the positive functions of the market process and entrepreneurship. People anticipate likely consequences and learn through trial and error. Within a free economy competitive forces provide rapid feedback, swiftly rewarding successful innovations and punishing failures. These characteristics hold great potential for improving environmental quality. This is the powerful force discounted or neglected by the early greens.

Economies, like ecosystems are complex and dynamic, evolving spontaneously, from the bottom up. In stark contrast, the bureaucracies greens seek are largely immune from these evolutionary forces. Agencies become parasitic when they are buffered from the consequences of their actions. In the end, bureaucracies are run for the benefit of the bureaucrats in them and the clientele upon whom they depend. Thus, we should not be surprised when agencies like the U.S. Forest Service systematically advocated environmentally costly and financially wasteful programs. This once proud agency squandered its reputation and good will and is having a terrible time earning it back. Political pressures inhibit meaningful reform. And it's not only the Forest Service; statist management consistently fails everywhere.

As people become better educated and more wealthy, their demand for a quality environment increases dramatically. Earth Day should promote institutions which recognize this taste for green. This requires innovations which only entrepreneurs, non-profit and for-profit, are likely to deliver.

This is not to suggest that wealth gives immunity from ecological ills. For example, trophy homes in sensitive riparian zones and wildlife corridors present serious problems. People, especially rich people, should be held accountable for the consequences of their actions. In general, however, richer is greener.

Good economists never argue that the market is perfect. It is not and will never be. Markets drive toward narrow efficiency. They ignore many intangibles and often destroy things with no price and no owner. Business, by its competitive nature, is rapacious when not held accountable. That's why we support sensible environmental regulations.

Most greens seek environmental quality, not socialism. However, many of the older generation still view markets primarily as tools for big business and as means of exploiting nature and the poor. They believe that without governmental direction, greed trumps green.

But the new generation of environmental professionals which emerged since 1970 is far more economically sophisticated than were Earth Day's founders. Increasingly young, professional greens understand that wealth, health, and environmental quality increase together. This new generation realizes it is intellectually and ethically irresponsible to ignore or deny this fact.

The appropriate mission for this Earth Day is to understand causal links among sound science, efficient economics, and environmental quality. I suggest a theme for this Earth Day; "Harnessing Entrepreneurship for Ecology".