Environmental activists usually

critical of electrified America must have mixed emotions this time of

the year. Though it is a season of good cheer and goodwill toward all,

it is also a time of conspicuous energy consumption.

To many people, America the

Beautiful is at her best in December when so much of the nation is illuminated

social offering - a positive externality, in the jargon of economics

-given by many to all.

While a few energy doomsayers

such as Paul Ehrlich rile against "garish commercial Christmas displays,"

few of today's headline grabbers (Arianna Huffington, where are you?)

have attempted to stir up debate over the generator-hours devoted to making

the season glow. Indeed, holiday lighting seems a dazzling exception to

the activists' goal of reducing discretionary energy usage.

But if holiday energy guzzling

can be overlooked, why not excuse outdoor heating and cooling, one-switch

centralized lighting, and instant-on appliances that "leak"

electricity, not to mention SUVs? Prancing around to turn on individual

lights or waiting for the photocopier to warm up wastes the scarcest and

one truly depleting resource: A person's time.

Known world oil reserves are

more than 20 times greater now than they were when record keeping began

in the 1940s; world gas reserves are almost four times greater than they

were in the 1960s; world coal reserves have risen fourfold since 1950.

Transient developments, often

political, can drive supplies down and prices up, but the raw mineral

resource base is abundant, and expanding in economic terms, thanks to

an inexhaustible supply of human ingenuity and exploratory capital.

Record energy consumption has

been accompanied by improving air quality. Urban air quality is a third

better today than in 1970.

The U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency reported that air emissions of the criteria pollutants declined

by 25 percent, as energy usage increased by 150 percent.

Further air emission reductions

are expected, but they will not be accomplished by forcing higher prices

or inconvenience on consumers. Future reductions will be accomplished

with market incentives, technological improvement, and regulation based

on sound science, not alarmism.

Should good citizens think

twice about holiday lighting, given global warming and other suspected

climate changes supposedly caused by increasing atmospheric concentrations

of carbon dioxide?

Hardly. A moderately warmer,

wetter world, whether natural or anthropogenic, such as experienced in

the 20th century, is a better world. Carbon dioxide from the combustion

of fossil fuels "greens" the biosphere through the well-documented

carbon fertilization effect.

But most importantly, the wealth

created from affordable, plentiful energy provides the primary means for

societies to improve the environment. In the final analysis, wealth produces

environmental health, which explains why increasing energy usage and environmental

improvement have gone hand in hand in the Western world.

There is much to be thankful

for this holiday season with our energy economy. But thoughts about the

less fortunate should be with us, too.

The World Energy Council estimates

that 1.6 billion people lack electricity for lighting, heating, cooling,

or cooking. A Christmas tree for us is likely to be firewood for those

living in energy poverty.

For fully a fourth of the world's

population, there could be no greater holiday gift than affordable electricity,

explaining why the developing world has flatly rejected proposals from

environmental elites to forsake future energy usage in the quixotic quest

to "stabilize climate."

Energy consumption is good,

for comfort, convenience, and even celebration. May one and all in good

conscience enliven this holiday season with lights aplenty. With sources

of conventional fuels steadily expanding and energy technologies rapidly

advancing, Americans can look forward to even more energetic celebrations

and shared goodwill in the holiday seasons ahead.

[Rob Bradley is president of

the Institute for Energy Research in Houston, an adjunct scholar of the

Cato Institute, and author of "Climate Alarmism Reconsidered"

(Institute of Economic Affairs, 2003).]