The modern environmental movement evolved from the conservation movement of the turn of the century. We can be grateful for the many notable successes of the early conservationists. They alerted America to serious problems like "cut and run" timber harvesting, overgrazing government lands, and vanishing game. However they also gave us a legacy to overcome. Here's how it evolved.

After the deprivations of the Great Depression and World War II, Americans had 25 years of material success. Environmental sensitivity posed few constraints on the economic boom. In the economic growth, environmental costs went largely unaccounted for.

But as the Americans prospered, gaining in education and affluence, there was an environmental awakening. Rachel Carson's Slient Spring and the first Earth Day in 1970 opened niches for politicians. They responded to the nation's growing concern over environmental quality with command-and-control legislation. Environmental goals implied federal management, political mandates, and stringent regulations. The costs of legislation like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act were high but so were the benefits. The Cuyahoga River is no longer flammable and airborne lead dropped 98 percent.

Today, environmentalism is in crisis. Many early environmentalists came out of the radical movements of the late 1960s. They were largely innocent of basic economic principles, hostile to business and the market process, and highly optimistic regarding the potential of federal command-and-control regulation. Some, especially the deep ecologists, advocated a halt to economic progress and a return to simpler, more primal living. This approach, however romantic, has important economic, ecological, social, and ethical flaws.

As the bureaucratic pathologies of Progressive-Era agencies like the Forest Service and modern agencies like the EPA multiplied, violations of efficiency and liberty became increasingly obvious. The "wise use" movement succeeded the Sagebrush Rebellion as rural frustration with federal arrogance mounted.

Again, politicians responded. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID), Don Young (R-AK), and others tried scaling back federal environmental oversight. But the Republican position on the environment is opportunistic and ultimately self-defeating. Republicans promise to improve the education and prosperity of Americans. What Republicans consistently neglect, however, is that environmental sensitivity increases with wealth and education.

Don Coursey, dean of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, demonstrates that environmental quality is like BMWs: as income increases 1 percent, demand for environmental quality increases 2.5 percent. Simply put: the affluent and well-educated demand environmental quality

Newt Gingrich acknowledges this reality by saying, "I don't think any party can be a sustainable majority that ignores or rejects its environmental responsibilities." So he shouldn't be surprised if Republicans lose the majority. The word "environment" doesn't appear in the Contract with America. I just recevied a fund-raising letter from the Republican National Committee which named dozens of issues but didn't even mention the environment.

Republicans consistently neglect positive environmental reform and cave in to special interests which promote extractive industries and regional subsidies. Yet well-off, well-educated voters increasingly say, "But Newt, we love the environment!" Republicans are taking political heat for giving their environmental portfolio to wise-use sympathizers like Young and Chenoweth. Many Republicans stay home or even defect to the Democrats who support the traditional environmental agenda. Their own party gives them no comfortable niche.

In August, environmentalist and conservationist groups with 20 million members met to voice displeasure with the Republican environmental platform. One participating group, Trout Unlimited, makes the links between environmentalism, education, and prosperity clear. The average TU member has an income of $105,000, and 40% of their members have a master's, law, M.D, or Ph.D degree. Their membership is "conservative on almost every issue apart from the environment," according to TU's communications director Peter Rafle.

Instead of appealing to this important and growing constituency, Republicans offered ethanol subsidies, salvage logging, and lax efforts to preserve endangered species. But as Americans become wealthier and wiser they abhor such policies. Republican Party strategists appear dim-witted or cowardly. Is exploitation their only alternative to command-and-control, Al Gore statism?

A different shade of green respects ecology, liberty, and prosperity. Rather than pit the environment against the economy, it harmonizes complementary values. This evolving environmental vision recognizes the problems inherent to bureaucracies and stresses the importance of local knowledge, incentives, and entrepreneurial innovation. It rejects government as an engine of plunder while respecting links between property rights and stewardship.

This new shade of green is evolving. Environmental groups like The Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, and Defenders of Wildlife have had remarkable successes with their voluntary conservation programs. Firms like Amoco, Coors, and Port Blakely Tree Farms are creating new value by protecting the environment and improving the bottom line. And even some government programs are beginning to use market processes to better coordinate management of public lands.

If the learning curves of Republicans don't slope upward, that species of elephant may go extinct. And if Al Gore's statist platform doesn't adapt as well, in the election of 2000, his earth will be way out of balance. There is a vacant niche for political entrepreneurs who appeal to well-educated, wealthier, greener Americans. Candidates who can't find it deserve to fail come November.