Rating: 
Summary: Good Science and Good News for Us All
Review: The True State of the Planet, according to this book, is good. In fact, it is much better then we have been lead to believe. Sometimes, perhaps, we focus so much on the negative, that we forget how many positive things are occurring. This book reminds of the this truth.For example, we often hear the expression, the "population explosion." Implicit in this expression is the underlying belief that more is less. The more people we have, the less food, less resources, the less land, the less everything for everyone. It makes commonsense, but it is not true. People today have more food then every before. We are healthier and living longer lifes. The cost of almost everything is going down. How is this possible? The articles within this book describes how this is possilbe and gives us demonstrative proof of how good people really are. A few examples. More peoople, means more ingenuity. The more people you have working on any problem, the more likely it is to be solved. Thus we can not get more oil, because we have created new tools, created by these people, to get it. Moreover, most resources are not fixed, they change. Food is an easy example. We may have more people who need to eat, but we have more and more productive farmers to feed them. The truth is the term "shortages" is a misleading word. There is only a shortage when people want someone. Before there was that desire, there was no shortage. So, 300 years ago, there was no shortages of oil because we rode horses and used coal. Now that so many people are using cars, it may appear that there eventually will be a gas shortage. Maybe, but if it occurs, we will find substitutes. We already have substitute fuels, they just are not very cost effective. I also loved the article on fishes. It never occurred to me that we could be running out of fish. Apparently, we are. But this "shortage" is an artificial one. The writer explain how, when anything is free, everyone wants it. Most people can fish and eat their catch without limit on public lands. Why? We don't hunt at Yosemite. With more private fisheries, and less governmental intrusion, the fish population will boom. I also found the global warming article very interesing. Is the globe warming and if so, is it a crisis? I always found these scares amusing. When I was in grade school they talked, with fear, about the impending ice age. Remember those cold Neanderthals? I would rather be a little more warm, then too cold. Isn't most of Canada and Russian uninhabited? How many people live in Antartica. Well, apparently the data is mixed. We may be warming by .03 degrees a year, but we may not be. Don't buy any Canadian Condos yet. It is funny and strange that this book has been attacked in the reviews. I guess if a news anchor on local t.v. told us that the local bridge had 20 million crossing without a fatality, it may seem boring news. The one fatalty makes the headlines. Like that lone poor driver on that bridge, a few enviromental problems make better news. Just remember that, like that very good and safe bridge, the Planet is in very good shape, despite a few problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Misinformation and omitted data
Review: This book is full of propaganda and misinformation. The general concensus of the larger scientific community is all but ignored by the various authors on virtually every subject. The one example I will site is in the essay Fishing for Solutions:The State of the World's Fisheries. Although the book has a copyright of 2000, and the author sites some data as recently as 1998, he chooses to paint a rosy picture of the fishing harvest by limiting his data to data available up to 1996. He fails to mention that it was at this point that the fishing harvest hit its peak and that it has been in decline ever since. Being a biology teacher, I have spent considerable amounts of time researching the literature on various environmental problems including population growth, global warming, loss of diversity and the state of our fisheries. In every case, the authors of this book are at odds with what I have found to be the general concensus of the larger scientific community. I find it troublesome that the publishers of this book apparently did no research of their own to determine the validity of the views expressed within the pages of this book. Such misinformation is dangerous and unconstructive and presents a real risk to our environment and the economic health of our country in decades to come.
Rating:
Summary: Misinformation and omitted data
Review: This book is full of propaganda and misinformation. The general concensus of the larger scientific community is all but ignored by the various authors on virtually every subject. The one example I will site is in the essay Fishing for Solutions:The State of the World's Fisheries. Although the book has a copyright of 2000, and the author sites some data as recently as 1998, he chooses to paint a rosy picture of the fishing harvest by limiting his data to data available up to 1996. He fails to mention that it was at this point that the fishing harvest hit its peak and that it has been in decline ever since. Being a biology teacher, I have spent considerable amounts of time researching the literature on various environmental problems including population growth, global warming, loss of diversity and the state of our fisheries. In every case, the authors of this book are at odds with what I have found to be the general concensus of the larger scientific community. I find it troublesome that the publishers of this book apparently did no research of their own to determine the validity of the views expressed within the pages of this book. Such misinformation is dangerous and unconstructive and presents a real risk to our environment and the economic health of our country in decades to come.
Rating: 
Summary: Quality Perspecitive on the Environment
Review: This is an excellent summary of the major areas of current concern on the environment and it gives a much more balanced view of the global situation that anything I have read before. Environmentalists tend to just point a bleak picture while business leaders seem to be viewed as not caring at all. In this book many of the real accomplishments of managing the earth's resources are discussed in detail and in an easy to read and understandable format. Also purchasing it as an e-book makes even more sense because there are no polluting inks or papers involved and very little energy is required to get the book to you. This is the kind of overview and perspective that readers need to get a more balanced view of the major planetary concerns now facing us. I hope it is on the reading list of the governmental leaders who have the challange of shaping many policies that have global impacts. I strongly recommend reading this book and would suggest it as reading material for college courses as well.
Rating: 
Summary: The closer I get the less I see.
Review: When the authors get close to something I am very familiar with, like the recycling rates, the presented "facts" fall apart. This causes me to question the book. Also, the authors must be very embarassed by the current price of gasoline in the states, having asserted that we are immune to energy shocks. It is too easy, and often not very helpful, to say what we don't know and to call things into question. This paralyzing approach will not save endangered species, or improve our environment.
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