"CONTINUED cold and wet" was the summer forecast in Montana. Twice in August we had snow at 6,500 feet. Our ranch is between Bozeman and Big Sky, Mont. Normal rainfall is just under 20 inches per year.

This year we had 14.5 inches in July. Hay wouldn't cure and the barley is still in the field. "Where is global warming when we need it?" was a common question, repeated over the summer as a series of visitors joined up in the Big Sky country.

Despite this, our annual migration back to FREE's summer office was wonderfully rewarding. We worked hard, played hard and got the mix just right. FREE hosted a week-long seminar in environmental economics for academics and another, co-sponsored by the Environmental Management program at UW's Business School, for federal judges.

We held several shorter programs for business leaders and environmental writers. A summer highlight was our annual "seminar on wheels," a 407-mile bike trip from Yellowstone to Glacier national parks. (Economists call our team the FREE riders.) This was a seven-day exercise in stoic epicurism. We twice ground our way up the Continental Divide, Marias and Flesher passes, but as a result could indulge our appetites with impunity. Ah, the leisure of the theory class.

Aside from the writers, few of our guests specialize in environmental matters. Most accepted conventional environmental perspectives and were surprised that I do not. "How can you care about environmental quality and yet reject the `green' view?" was a recurrent question, and "Are you optimistic about Gore?" another. Here are my answers.

I believe that our vice president exemplifies the new public policy elite. He is sensitive, especially about the environment, ambitious, and confident of his superior knowledge of the way things really ought to be. When he ran for president in the spring of 1987, he saw global warming as a key campaign issue. His book, "Earth in the Balance," deals with this issue. Gore's treatment of global warming illustrates the process and problems of his brand of environmentalism.

"Earth in the Balance" was on the New York Times bestseller list for 22 weeks. Why is this book so attractive to the new policy elite? And why do they ignore arguments that contradict Gore's apocalyptic assertion? Given the recurrent and predictable failures of bureaucratic, command-and-control environmental management, why do Gore and his followers neglect an environmentalism based upon property rights and the market process? Here's my hypothesis.

Gore and the new elite specialize in abstract symbols, not material things. They don't get dirty or do heavy lifting. They don't experience the daily reality checks so familiar to most Americans, especially to people who sign payroll checks. The defining characteristics of Gore's peer group include intelligence and a dedication to politics. They seem confident in their ability to know what is good for other people - and quite willing to employ state coercion to enforce its realization. That is how they get things done.

Global warming gives them justification to control other people's lives. From their standpoint, global warming is a special kind of environmental issue, for it has a huge political benefit. It gives policy-makers a "legitimate" reason to constrain our liberty to act - e.g., by denying us safe, private vehicles. They want us to believe that the specter of global warming is so severe, the projected consequences so bad, that radical action is necessary. If global warming is both certain and dire, they can justify regulations to prevent this calamity. This is why Gore and others feel compelled to stifle debate and declare the issue decided. As they portray it, global warming gives rulers license to expand their rule.

This summer I worked on FREE's upcoming book with the Pacific Research Institute of San Francisco, "Balancing the Earth's Economy and Ecology." The contributors are a distinguished lot, and they deal with the philosophic and scientific issues of "Earth in the Balance." Some argue that severe global warming is unlikely. And even if some global warming occurs, some consequences will surely be beneficial. On balance, we can't tell.

But whether the subject is global warming or deforestation, environmental problems are complex and highly emotional. Good data and clear thinking are required to deal with them. As Gore says in "Earth in the Balance," ". . . to exclude inconvenient facts from the calculation of what is good and what is bad is a form of dishonesty" (p. 188). Sensitive and sound environmental understanding is too important for truth to be gored by a collectivist ideology and a quest for governmental control.

This is a theme of my Winter Quarter course, "Business and the Environment: the Political Economy of Environmental Policy" (BA 590). Although it's a Business School offering, students from all over the university take it, as do a few townspeople.

Some of my lectures become columns. I invite you to follow my Wednesday columns. I welcome your suggestions of topics. The quality of our environment is important enough to merit our most careful and honest consideration.