Anonymous
Posted November 27, 2000
This book is a lot less doom and gloom than Mr. Ehrlich's first book - The Population Bomb. Pollution seems to be the mainstay of the Ehrlich's concernes now, but the usual predictions of an unsustainable future are included. I find the book disappointing because it doesn't appear to make any scientific refutations on significant issues - just arguments. For instance, the Ehrlich's have taken quite a blow from Julian Simon. Their response to him is brief and sounds more like a childish argument than a rebutall. For instance, they 'attack' Simon's claim that the we can sustain our growth for 7 billion years; it takes them a full page, but they certainly do put Simon to 'shame.' My question - are they serious?? The sun won't even be around for even 4.6 billion years; do they think Simon is that stupid? I think they missed something. The majority of the book's 'battle against the browlashers' was especially disapointing, covering such 'popular myths' as 'the greenhouse effect is a hoax' and 'cfc's couldn't have caused the ozone hole...'; popular? how so? Further, the book cites 'brownlash literature' which they consider dangerous; Simon's books are not listed; why? Isn't Simon one of the Ehrlich's greatest forces of opposition?
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Editorial Reviews
Amicus Journal
With clear prose, clear concepts, and clear-eyed realism, the authors have managed to make abstract concepts of environmental science understandable and even compelling.Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
"The time has come to write a book about efforts being made to minimize the seriousness of environmental problems." With that opening sentence, the authors (The Stork and the Plow) take on what they see as the purveyors of environmental disinformation. In a lively style, they systematically dismantle claims allegedly made in recent booksby the likes of Gregg Easterbrook, Stephen Budiansky, Rush Limbaugh, Dixy Lee Ray and Julian Simonthat global warming is fiction, ozone depletion should be of no concern and that the earth can support many times its current population. Chapters cover population growth, food supply, natural resources, species diversity, toxic substances, global warming and economics. In each, direct quotations from the anti-environmentalists named above are presented, dissected and refuted. With ample documentation and a great deal of input from some of the world's most renowned environmental scientists, such as Stephen Schneider, Peter Raven and Nobel laureate Sherwood Roland, the overall effect is powerful. 25,000 first printing; author tour. (Oct.)Library Journal
Recently, several popular books have concluded that nothing is seriously wrong with the environment. The Ehrlichs label these critics of themselves and other environmental activists as leaders of the "brownlash." They forcefully argue that although some improvements have occurred, most environmental problems have not been solved but are in fact rapidly getting worse. Throughout their book, the Ehrlichs address questions raised by such writers as Dixie Lee Ray, Gregg Easterbrook, and Julian Simon, responding to doubts those writers have expressed about overpopulation, global warming, and natural resource limits and asserting that there is a solid consensus among serious scientists that these issues must be addressed if humanity is not to suffer severe consequences. While not without flaws, e.g., the authors make some assumptions of their own, this is a solid addition to popular environmental literature and should spark more debate about the extent and nature of current environmental problems.Randy Dykhuis, Michigan Lib. Consortium, HoltKirkus Reviews
The Ehrlichs (Healing the Planet, 1991, etc.) land a sober-sided sleeve across the collective windpipe of today's environmental glad-tiders."Brownlash" is what the Ehrlichs call "those efforts made to minimize the seriousness of environmental problems" still bedeviling planet Earth. This happy bunch—Gregg Easterbrook, Julian Simon, Dixy Lee Ray, et al.—have twisted the findings of empirical science and arrived at a body of antiscience, suggest the Ehrlichs, for less than ethical ends. The Ehrlichs have no issue with scientists who challenge conventional thinking, but they find repugnant the brownlash that is simply a vehicle for right-wing ideology or to further some economic or political goal. Since scientific knowledge is not one of the hallmarks of this country's population, the brownlashers have managed to sow seeds of doubt. So the husband-and-wife environmental science team explains once again overpopulation, global climate change, ozone depletion, and losses of biodiversity. They answer questions about the dangers with brisk, no-nonsense answers: They write about a population overshooting the carrying capacity of its turf; about renewable resources becoming nonrenewable due to rate of use; about long-term sustainability and ethical decency toward the Earth as intelligent goals. Sound familiar? The figures have been updated, the latest studies have been plumbed, but these are the same points the Ehrlichs have been fielding since 1970. That doesn't mean they're stuck in a rut, it's just that they got it right the first time around.
Ignorance is what allows the brownlashers a toehold. Learn what you can on a topic and make your own decisions, counsel the Ehrlichs. A little reflection, a little common sense, they'll wager, and the glad-tiders will be out on the street selling pencils.
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