Environmental Justice through Improved Efficiency

Environmentalists can convince others to adopt nature-friendly policies through appeal to commonly-held values. Efficiency and justice are such values in industrial societies, but these values are often considered at odds with each other and with policies that preserve land and reduce pollution. The present paper analyses the notion of efficiency and argues that transportation policies that environmentalists favour - substitution of intercity rail and urban mass transit for most automotive forms of transport - are both efficient and just.