environment and its economy. The taxpayer then has to pay another $1,000 to repair the environmental damage and to cover higher costs for food and other items. Although special interests profit tremendously from perverse subsidies, they are also a holdover from a previous phase of industrial development, a frontier mentality that is no longer positive for economic development. It is ironic that these massive destructive subsidies are such a major part of a global economy that prides itself on free markets. In fact, the markets are not free, many being rigged in favour of powerful vested interests. For this reason, an increasingly influential tendency within green economics is that of natural capitalismwhich advocates a removal of all subsidies, allowing a level playing field for more ecological forms of production, like conservation and renewable energy. Some green economists, like Wayne Roberts (Roberts & Brandum, 1995), argue that corporate globalization itself is possible only because of massive subsidies for fossil fuels that make long-distance transportation artificially cheap. Roberts argues that, even without internalizing all the hidden costs of production, just the removal of subsidies to dirty energy would deflate globalization and spur the development of more efficient regional economies.