By Bonner R. Cohen
Guest columnist

ARLINGTON, Va. - From childhood we are told that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Unfortunately, this list is incomplete: the other thing we can really count on with mathematical certainty are predictions of impending environmental disaster, loudly proclaimed by activists at events marking Earth Day. Today's commemoration will be no exception.

Expect to read and hear what Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, author of the best-selling The Skeptical Environmentalist, has called the "Litany."

By the Litany, Lomborg means the never-ending predictions of environmental doom brought about by man's insatiable appetite to devour the planet's resources to the point of their depletion. But as Lomborg and other skeptics point out, those claims are not backed up by any available evidence.

As the world's leading economic power, the United States has, over the last century, transformed itself from a predominantly agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse.

Like Europe and Japan, it has made creative use of industrial chemicals to do such things as purify drinking water, develop life-sustaining pharmaceuticals and medical instruments, and protect crops from deadly infestation.

Life expectancy in the United States has increased from 56 years in 1920 to 76.7 years today. Diseases such as cholera, malaria, typhoid fever and smallpox, which regularly ravaged the generation of our grandparents, have all but disappeared from the United States and other industrialized nations.

Therein lies a lesson for those interested in sensible environmental and public health policies. A wealthier society is a healthier society, and poverty means pollution.

The most deplorable environmental conditions are to be found in poverty-stricken developing countries, where people lack access to modern technology and affordable energy. Real pollution is rapidly disappearing from industrial societies, but it is commonplace in sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and other places devoid of the fruits of modern technology.

Meanwhile, according to figures released annually by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the quality of the air, water and other natural resources in the this country continues to make dramatic improvements, as new, cleaner technologies replace older ones.

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Health Care Without Harm, and the Environmental Working Group regularly launch scare campaigns - conspicuously lacking in credible data - against industrial chemicals whose use has contributed mightily to Americans living longer, healthier lives.

A good case can be made for sound environmental policy, but don't expect to hear it from the organizers of Earth Day.

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Bonner R. Cohen is a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute, www.lexingtoninstitute.org. Readers may write to him at Lexington Institute, 1600 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 900, Arlington, Va. 22209, or e-mail him at cohen@lexingtoninstitute.org.