The gases come from the burning of fossil fuels, such as natural gas and oil. So the only way to reduce greenhouse gases significantly is to curtail production. But curtailing production will lower people's standard of living. Americans are pretty close to unanimous in wishing to raise their living standards. So we have a clash between the citizen and the state. Moreover, the people in the developing world, whose living standards are still behind ours despite much progress since World War II, stand to suffer immensely from any government-imposed slow-down in production.

But doesn't something as serious as global warming warrant extraordinary measures? The issue is not that simple. While believers in global warming get most of the attention, there is a substantial literature from climatologists and other scientists pointing out the lack of evidence for warming. Fred Singer of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, says that "precise weather satellite data, available since 1979 and covering the globe for the first time, show a slight cooling trend." Computer models of the world's climate might predict warming but the data do not. The believers in warming are in the position of Groucho Marx, who cried, "Who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?"

Singer points out that the climate has been anything but stable over recorded history. The earth apparently has been able to cool and warm without any help from man. In the 1970s some of the same people now scaring us about global warming were preparing for global cooling. The funny thing is that in each case the solution was government control.

The debate over global warming has gotten nasty lately. Believers say the skeptics are on the payroll of industrial interests. Some, but not all, get money from industry. But many of the believers get research money from government agencies. Why assume that a climatologist would sell out his scientific integrity to industry but not to government? The government is not likely to continue to fund research that undercuts its case for activism. Are we not also entitled to regard scientists working under tax-funded grants as tainted? Perhaps the believers should stop muddying the scientific debate with unproved charges of intellectual corruption and stick to the evidence.

Years ago socialists said that collective ownership of the means of production would out-produce capitalism. But with the fall of socialism, those who dislike free markets have been hard-pressed to argue that economic freedom can't deliver the goods. So a new strategy has emerged. Advocates of government control fault capitalism for producing too many goods -- at the expense of life and the environment. In their view, the only hope is to cut back on industrial activity and let government manage the economy in the name of environmental protection.

In fact, mandating a cutback in production is dangerous. At a lower level of production, the world will not be able to sustain a population of five and a half billion people and growing. (Those who want population growth to be controlled should ask themselves whether they wish government to decide how many children they may have.) The environmental movement should stop presenting its program as though it is costless.

The future is always risky because it is uncertain. The late scholar Aaron Wildavsky liked to say, "Wealthier is healthier." He meant that since we don't know exactly what dangers the future holds, the best hedge is wealth. Wealth permits the resilience and freedom of action needed to respond to the unforeseen. Government is not good at producing wealth. On the contrary, it limits the key precondition for production, liberty.

Sheldon Richman is senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation, editor of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty (The Foundation for Economic Education), and author of Separating School & State: How to Liberate America's Families (1995) and Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax (1998).

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