>How is it possible and what is the point of assigning property rights to air
>and water when both are public goods? Surely the WB doesn't believe in
>property
>rights that strongly.
Yes they do. The answer to environmental degradation is to privatize public goods, with the World Bank as investment banker and bond salesperson. Privatize water utilities and charge for water use; make the right to pollute the air into a tradeable financial instrument. I did an article on the Columbia U economist Graciela Chichilnisky, one of the leading proponents of such schemes, for 21stC. Visit <http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-2.1/henwood.htm> and you'll see just how far this kind of thinking goes. Chich wants to put a dollar value on the Amazon rainforest. How? With computer models, of course.
Doug