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Summary: If you care about our environment, read the book.
Review: This book is packed with succinct responses to the rampant anti-environmental rhetoric. For the layperson who cares about the seeming destruction of the environment, while constantly hearing that "things aren't so bad", it's a breath of fresh air. The Ehrlichs clearly communicate what scientists know about the effects of human activity on our biosphere. (Footnotes are thoughtfully included.)
Essential reading for the science-minded person.
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Summary: A good read
Review: This book is very educational and readable. I higly recommend it. Don't believe the negative reviews on this site - it's obvious that most of them have not read the book and are simply repeating lines verbatim out of Julian Simon's books. As a point of fact, environmentalists do not make "predictions" that turn out to be wrong. They make "scenarios" that depend on current trends - some scenarios are worst case, some are best case. It is people like Julian Simon and Rush Limbaugh who make predictions - all WILL be well, the free market WILL solve everything. To see how well Simon's predictions have fared, go to Russia and see how well the practical application of Simon's ideas have resulted in improved living standards. Go to Africa and see how well human ingenuity has saved the day for the impoverished masses. Julian Simon was a radical secular humanist who couldn't even face up to the fact that the dream of human progress was shattered by two world wars and the spiralling collapse of the 3rd World. At least Ehrlich is a scientist - you may not like the policies he proposes (and I don't), but find fault with his science.
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Summary: An extraordinary contribution to the environment.
Review: This book lines out important scientific findings about critical environmental problems such as global warming and dwindling bio-diversity. It carefully unravels the irrational "reasoning" of those who don't want to see what's wrong with the excesses of carbon dioxide and other factors that are likely to lead to major famines and economic instability. I have read a dozen books on the environment in the last few months. Although there are a number of very good ones, this is my favorite.
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Summary: Outstanding rebuttal of corporate funded contrarian rhetoric
Review: This book should be essential reading in the curriculum of all undergraduate biology classes. However, I should initially say that it is patently obvious that none of the readers below who have attacked the book or the authors have even bothered to read it, to digest its message, and to evaluate the significance of its content. At present, a largely uninformed society is being bombarded with more anti-environmental rhetoric than at any time in human history, in books, magazine articles, by right-wing radio show pundits, on television, and, more recently, over the internet, and we have to ask ourselves, why.Like Paul and Anne, I am a senior scientist, an ecologist, whose research focuses on understanding the link between micro-evolutionary, largely 'stochastic' processes occurring over small scales, and emergent, homeostatic poperties, operating at much larger spatial and temporal scales. Consider that our species is simplifying natural systems worldwide with staggering and worrying efficiency, through the combined activities of paving, ploughing, damming, dredging, slashing and burning, logging, dousing in persistent organic pollutants, alteration the carbon and nitrogen cycles, co-opting much of primary production, and ultimately threatening the sustainability of systems upon which we are utterly dependent for our survival. Whether we like to admit it or not, ecosystems and the species they contain generate the conditions which nurture life and humanity, though the services the freely provide us. But, in this world of wounds, we - the ecological community - have barely begun to understand the stupendous complexity underpinning the continuation and existence of these natural systems, and therefore we have no real idea how much they can be reduced in size before they begin to break down, and fail to generate the life-sustaining services which permit our existence. Now, contrast our uncertainty as to the outcome of the planetary "experiment" humanity is conducting on its own life-support systems with the wholly anti-scientific rhetoric being generated from a number of generally right wing, corporate-funded think tanks, political idealogues and public relations firms. Employing a variety of tactics, they are attempting to manipulate public opinion, as well as that of policy makers, to deflect from the real need for societal and corporate reform, in essence to maintain a "business-as-usual" mentality while our planet slides gradually but inexorably towards ecological catastrophe. The aim is simple: to ensure corporate profit maximisation through the prevention of sensible regulations being implemented to protect public health and the environment. This tactic, of course, can only succeed if the public perceives environmental issues as being of secondary importance to other issues. In effect, they are "lobbying for lethargy", and sadly, this strategy is succeeding. I haven't the time nor the space here to elucidate upon the myriad of ways in which the "brownlash", as the Ehrlich's aptly call it, are manipulating science to provide a pre-determined outcome, but this book does a better job than I ever could. However, let me point out that Paul and Anne make an outstanding point of expanding upon the areas in which the scientific community is in broad agreement. There is consensus over the effects of humanity in perturbing the biogeochemistry of carbon and nitrogen cycles, which operate over stupendously large scales. These effects are manifested through changes not only in global climate patterns, but also in eutrophication of the biosphere. There is also consensus amongst our peers over the effects that humanity is having on land cover, through some of the processes that I discussed earlier. I should again reiterate that none of these areas are in dispute amongst our colleagues around the world. None. What we cannot accurately predict with any certainty at present is the effects that these changes will have on natural ecosystems. There will be ecological consequences, but we cannot, with any degree of statitical certainty, say exactly what these will be. However, given our limited understanding of ecosystem functioning, they are likely to be severe, and will not only have direct effects upon human society but will exacerbate the current extinction episode currently underway. Although ecosystems undeniably exhibit some resilience to human-inflicted change, even at current rates, there is no guarantee that they will be so resilient in delivering to us the free flow of services upon which we depend. For their part, the contrarians are not taking this consensus lying down, and have attempted, deviously in my view, to apply the principle of uncertainty over the outcome of processes that we know are occurring to describe the entire process itself, thereby rendering mute any public and political will to address these problems. Through greenwashing, aggressive mimicry, scapegoating and cynicism, the voices of a few dissident, bought-and-paid for scientists are being blown out of all proportion to create the image that issues such as species extinction rates, global warming and ozone depletion are broadly disputed amongst the scientific community, whereas they are not. As the authors correctly observe, there may not be many contrarians out there amongst our peers but their paymasters have bought them veritable megaphones. Ignore the reviews of those who haven't actually read the book - their minds were made up long ago - and read the volumes of peer-reviewed scientific evidence the Ehrlichs use to counter the brownlash.
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Summary: Appalling gall!
Review: What appalling gall for the Ehrlichs to title a book "Betrayal of Science and Reason". Their doomsaying predictions have repeatedly turned out wrong, yet people still buy their nonsense. Some environmental issues are real, but it's hard to find them amidst the rubbish, and the solutions lie in technology and markets, not control and going backwards.
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Summary: The very title is an insult. Ehrlich is THE modern day con.
Review: While it is often humorous-if not the epitome of irony-to see titles like Betrayal of Science and Reason spring from an authors such as Paul Eurlich considering his professional career has essentially consisted of scare-mongering by claiming looming disaster is ahead, even when his "scientific" predictions never bear out. Eurlich is a modern day boy crying wolf, and should at long last be ignored. Statements like, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate...", should have buried Eurlich's cerdibility long ago, but, alas, there are plenty of individuals out there still ready to be further hoodwinked (Ehrlich 1971, p.xi). Ehrlich obviously takes P.T. Barnum's statement that, "There's a sucker born every minute , but non of them ever die," to heart. He has fed from the sullied trough of fear for decades now, and with this latest installment he is further insulting our intelligence by stating that those peers who reviewed his "studies" were blinded by ideology at the same time that his cataclysmic predictions of world starvation and overpopulation evaporated. Come now Mr. Eurlich, let's get serious.
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Summary: A study of how science has been skewed by politics
Review: Written by Paul Ehrlich and his wife Anne Ehrlich, both eminent biologists at Stanford University, this book examines how the public's view of environmental issues has become increasingly clouded through what the authors term, "brownlash". By this, they mean that some anti-environmentalists have sought to use science and scientific reasoning to skewer long-held and perceived assumptions about the state of environmentalism, to de-bunk the need for environmental protection. At face value, you would think this is a broadside against neoconservative thinking, and indeed Ehrlich and Ehrlich condemn those on the right such as Rush Limbaugh for what they see as the right's blatant attempts to discredit environmental protection efforts, and scientific reasoning in general, but they do point out that it isn't all the fault of conservative Republicans. Their aim, in writing a book for a general audience, is to explain in clear but quite understandable prose for the general reader, what the complexities in environmental studies are, where we've come from in terms of environmental protection, and where we need to go in order to preserve the earth for future generations
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