Buried in the middle pages of the Wisconsin State Journal recently was a story from The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

Gunnar Lauenstein, lead oceanographer, said that levels of 140 pesticides and industrial chemicals have continued to decrease over the past 20 years.

"Different regions have different stories, " said Lauenstein, "but when you look at all the numbers and evaluate them statistically, it shows that on a national basis, concentrations are going down. "

Only too often articles in the local and national media seem to take delight in claiming that (1) the world is becoming progressively more polluted; (2) the world is already seriously overpopulated and (3) the world is fast running out of natural resources like oil and food and trees.

In short, day by day and year by year, the world is going to hell -- and in a corporate-made industrial-lined environmentally perverse plastic basket. And the cure of course is colored green.

I disagree.

No one denies we have national and international problems with pollution, populations and resources.

But one also should be aware that all past ages had it much worse, and trends today are almost all positive, not negative.

Solutions to pollution, population and resource problems will have to come from better science, better technology, more effective corporate action, more effective education and more effective governmental action.

Solutions are unlikely to come from personal lifestyle changes, no matter how green and well intentioned. When Al Gore and other green promoters actually move to remote cabins in the woods without plumbing or electricity, refrain from jet flights, adopt a strict vegetarian diet, don 't eat anything that wasn 't grown within 100 miles of home, turn their automobiles into plowshares, and give up their books, newspapers and Internet connections -- it might be time to believe their propaganda.

Don 't get me wrong, thinkers and leaders from Benjamin Franklin onward have supported common-sense lifestyle approaches that stress efficiency and frugality.

But our American middle class lifestyles are not the culprit. Far from it. They are the gold standard for people all over the world.

We should support policies that actually lead to clean air, water and soil. But too many green advocates today are making a religion of environmentalism instead of using science, reason and good old-fashioned common sense to solve real-world problems.

Example. Genetic engineering and nuclear power do offer genuine help for many of the most difficult environmental problems, yet both are actively opposed by most greens.

On the other hand, propaganda about recycling, organic farming, promotion of "natural " and demotion of "chemical, " more efficient light bulbs and heaping of blame on corporations offer precious little help on these same problems.

Stonebarger lives in Madison.