Customer Reviews (11) 
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The book came in a weekend as soon as the seller had the address. Book in good condition.
Gentle on the issues but well written.
I am an environmental science teacher who chooses to use this book. I agree with the long winded reviewer that this book is gentle on the issues, but believe this approach to be important in an introductory course.As the teacher, I make it my job to color the issues I find important.The 8th edition is out, so this version will become less popular.
Some good features but no hard truths in textbooks!
These comments are on the 6th edition which I'm sure mostly apply to the 7th.
General comments.Well done book from one point of view and I suppose it's about as honest as you can get and still get it published and used.But, as with nearly all public statements on the environment, it carefully(and perhaps unconsciously) avoids any serious presentation of politically incorrect views.Sad, as they are often the only completely honest and accurate ones and as long as the world keeps up the illusions there is no hope for the future. I mention a few of the more notable ones that are nearly universal in public discourse.I mostly stopped reading books on the environment decades ago and this is only the second time I have ever written anything about it as it is clearly hopeless but as this book evidently reaches many I'll try.No, I do not have any vested interests as I am not rich, never have owned stock, have no children, never had any religious or political affiliations and no racial or elitist prejudices whatsoever.I'm old and in a few years I won't be here so I really should not give a damn but just can't help feeling bad about the end of the world!
P21 rt col bottom-"..conflicts over resources may flare up..."This has to be one of the understatements of the century as such conflicts have been a universal feature of society from its inception and get worse by the day so one might better say they happen constantly everywhere and are guaranteed to get far worse as the population grows and resources disappear.I'm sure that "people" were fighting incessantly over resources3 million years ago.How do we know?Just take a look at primates.
P22Fig 1.9 legend et seq throughout the book----one might say that "poverty" is the politically correct term for "overpopulation" and that as it is the people themselves who produce more children, and destroy everything they can, they (and their countries and the world) suffer the consequences of their own stupidity and selfishness.Of course the same is true everywhere and though tragic from some points of view it is simple justice from others.The poor are only the rich in waiting.
Fig 1.10---Percent of what ?
P25 Fig 1.12---Of course no precise figures exist on species loss but I'd say you might replace "host" by tens or hundreds of thousands of species being lost annually and no informed person could object.
Fig 1.13 and throughout the book re "helping" the poor. Yes this is the common and politically correct thing to say but if youreflect on the concept of "help" in its global long term consequences I think you will nearly always find that helping one person harms another, or actually many, both in the present and future.Increasing anyone's health, life span or standard of living inevitably destroys the earth faster and causes more suffering in the long run, so at the very least it's debatable as to what is helping and what is more humane and what protects the environment.E.g., they may not chop down so many trees for firewood if they can afford a gas stove or have as many babies if health standards improve but they will build more and bigger houses, consume more of everything, live longer and their negative impact on the world will be far worse in the long run. Of course it's the same for the first world also. The basic problem is the selfish nature of every human.Like all organisms, we are programmed to destroy the earth-i.e., reproduce and consume without limits.I recall some of the new ten commandments that my late mentor Garrett Hardin set forth in an essay some 30 years ago."Blessed are the merciful for they shall be sitting ducks." and, if memory serves, "Blessed are the meek for they shall reproduce without restraint." It is a legitimate and revealing point of view that we are all enemies of life on earth and that every meal and every pair of pants contributes to its destruction.A dollar is a unit of planetary destruction and it's defensible that it's better spent on planting a tree, buying and protecting a nature reserve or buying birth control pills or an abortion than providing food, medicine or a new dam for the third world(or the first!). Or, if you must "help" others, tie money and food to population control and environmental protection .To live is to destroy, every mother and baby are enemies of life on earth., there is no free lunch, and if we look at the whole picture and are honest, it's clear that the only good human is a dead one.Not comforting, but if we keep up the illusions that are the nearly universal stance of social discourse, there is no hope at all for the future.But who has the courage to tell the truth, or as Hardin put it so aptly, to shout that the Emperor has no clothes?
Rt col top---4 million children hungry in USA?---I always wonder about these statistics as I have traveled over the USA including the ghettos for decades and I don't recall ever seeing anyone who looked like they were starving and in fact mostly people young and old look overfed so just how do they decide this?
Rt col bottom-It is highly debatable that colonialism destabilized or impoverished anyone(provided you look at the whole picture and consider the likely present if colonists had never entered these countries).The background is that all countries everywhere almost nonstop thru history have exploited each other and their own people to the max.If the colonists had not brought in medicine, money and technology most of the third world might be in far worse shape than now.Of course it's also true that the introduction of these is directly responsible for the population explosion that dooms them all.
P26Fig 1.14 and thru the book---It is a defensible point of view, which they don't seem tomention anywhere, that these (ie third world) countries are overdeveloped and those of the first world grossly overdeveloped. Underdevelopment is another popular but fatal delusion.Nobody anywhere is underdeveloped in my view.
P27left col middle.The only desire we really need to curb is the desire to produce more than one child---then everything will take care of itself.Without this, all the other laudable actions are almost certainly a waste of time.
P28 rt col. Same comments as for "helping" in Fig 1.13 above. Poverty reduction and social justice guarantee accelerated ecological collapse and that from another viewpoint, the "Good News" is really "Bad News" and vv.If one takes the long term global view, nearly anything that increases anyone's std. of living or a country's GDP is very bad news indeed.If we cared about the future (or say, even our own grandchildren) we would all be doing our best to reduce the GDP every year.It is a reasonable view that one of (or even THE) basic principles of human ecology is "THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH". And it is you and I who pay with our taxes (which equal years of our working lives!) and allthe world's people in the future who pay with their happiness.Equality and justice and humaneness have a huge financial (i.e., environmental) cost which usually far outweigh the benefits and in the global long term produce more inequality, injustice and inhumanity than they remove.Of course I assume that like nearly everything I say here, the authors really know it too but just don't dare to say.
P29left col.It seems very clear to me from the evidence presented throughout this book(and of course everywhere one looks) that the world cannot sustain even its current use rates without making blue sky projections unsustained by any hard facts.Eg, I have never seen a hint anywhere as to how the world will replace the 75 billion tons of topsoil lost every year.Every serious book like this should reference Lester Brown's lovely little book "Who will feed China? I have never seen anything to refute it either and of course the Chinese govt. shut down the web page it was reprinted on there.
P30 left col middle. And Fig 1.10 pg 31.Fine-give aid,-provided you tie it all to population control.Otherwise it just makes things worse.I used to rail against the huge military budgets too until I realized it's either good or irrelevant."Human development" is just another euphemism for ecological collapse.Better to burn the money than increase the GDP anywhere.
P32re statistics on a poor African village.So if the village will reduce births to about 10 so it shrinks by one or two a year then give them aid.People anywhere who are unwilling to reduce their population for the benefit of the future are not responsible members of world society, not, one might say, even human(and yes it's the same for NY City!).
P37 left col top. Re shooting of poachers by game wardens.Yes that's what is has, and will, come to-to paraphrase Mao, Ecology comes out of the barrel of a gun.
P38 , 39Postmodernism etc. I suggest everyone readPinker's superb "The Blank Slate: the modern denial of human nature."It is easily the best book on this and the influence of genes on human behavior. One way to look at things is that the basis for all our behavior and views come from our inborn psychology and much of this is a web of delusions (some of which Hardin called "Taboos") which prevent us from seeing ourselves as part of the world and thinking about these issues rationally and honestly.It is a revelation to realize that you are arguing with genes and not people but of course whether this really gets you anywhere is another matter.
P39 rt col bottom re the "fact" that we do not hold children responsible for murder.Many now do hold the child responsible and there are compelling reasons for doing so. Is it not the act rather than the precise psychological state of mind that matters?Practically, the combination of genes and environment that produces these acts is irrelevant. Most children or adults do not kill, rape etc and everyone can come up with an excuse.One might view the world's problems as due to the failure to hold people responsible for their actions.
P50rt col middle re NeoLuddites who want to destroy modern technology.Very few people actually take such a view.Rather they want to stop development, reduce the GDP(Gross Destructive Product-my own highly revealing term but hardly very original), and decrease the population.
P191 and throughout the book.It is only fair to point out that it is the reduction of mortality that is primarily responsible for ecological collapse, war and most human misery.The last thing a sane, decent person wants to do is reduce mortality without reducing births.
P236 rt col middle---"Not all activities are harmful."All human activities are harmful and the only thing one can say is that some are more harmful than others!
P237 left col resupplying food to the world.One should keep in mind here and countless other places in the book that supplying these calories(and housing etc etc) is done at the cost of destroying everyone's future.
P238left col middle-"poverty is the greatest threat to food security".Again, this is a politically correct term for "overpopulation" is it not?
P240 left col middle"What causes ..tragedies?"Yes of course we know what you mean and yes it's the PC thing that nearly everyone says but nevertheless,tragic and dishonest and absolutely futile not to list overpopulation as the basic universal cause of famine and just about all of the world's problems.
P243 rt col middle---"As a result in many places..."How about in "all" places?Is there really anywhere that human activities do not eliminate the topsoil?How can it be replaced if there is tillage and crop removal?References?
P246 rt col top-"relatively little impact" Ah, yes, what does that mean?If it means it can last a thousand years then maybe its little but even then those alive at that time would surely disagree!So acceptable impact should mean indefinitely sustainable which means the land will be as good 1000 years from now as today. And, so far as I can see, that means there is no such thing as sustainable use of anything in the modern world, not even the air or the sea.
P248 left col top.I have often thought it illuminating to think of each person as eliminating 15 tons of topsoil a year(of course maybe ten times that if they are rich and 1/10th if they are poor) and putting ca 4 tons of garbage and toxic waste and 1000 tons of polluted water etc into the world every year.Think about this in the middle of all the discussions about helping the poor, increasing food output and sustainability.
Rt col top---5 tons topsoil loss is then not really a NET loss at all but I've seen the studies that show that even flat, well managed land in temperate zones(eg USA) loses 10tons/acre/yr and this must be the NET loss. It is unclear how cropland can build up NET any topsoil!
Something very confused here and don't think it's me!
P265rt col bottom---Again its at least debatable whether disease reduction is a benefit for reasons mentioned elsewhere.What "helps" some hurts others, now and in the future.
P311 left col top---destruction by antigovernment forces of forest projects in Israel??!! Are you sure its not Indonesia or India?
P313 rt col last line-I think the CR govt. terminated Janzen's project, undoubtedly for political(ie,selfish and stupid) reasons.
P325 left col middle----Consider Brazil---The fact is that the rich often do a much better job of protecting the land than the poor, who will eventually increase their numbers and exploit every square cm of anything they can get their hands on. They show this in this paragraph where they note that on big farms owned by the rich , 13% of land is idle-this is exactly what one wants-idle land-if only it could be 95% there would be no problems!
Left col bottom.-"productivity is ...higher".They just don't get it(of course they have most of the world for company!).What one wants if one cares at all about the future is DECREASED productivity, decreased everything and DECREASED GDP.
Fig 13.28re the signing away of Indian rights to some land.I assume that they leave out the most important part -that they were FORCED in some way to sign the contract and how were they forced?
P 331 left col bottom and of course all over the book."continue to use..in traditional ways."One might better substitute "abuse" or "destroy" as truly traditional, sustainable use is virtually nonexistent anywhere.They and all "native peoples" all use modern tools(ie steel hoes, machetes, fertilizers, chemicals, tractors, horses, sheep etc) they never had before, medicines etc and have larger populations and use the environment in countless ways and to a degree their ancestors never did. Sure, there is bad and very bad but I doubt very much a careful look will show that "traditional use" anywhere is really sustainable or that it has preserved anything like the ecology that was there 1000 years ago.
P340 rt col top, p 341 left col top---See the comments on p28.I can't see any evidence at all that the "new world order" will save a damn thing!In fact, with minor exceptions, it will only accelerate the destruction and the same goes for Thoreau's comment.Recall this dictum?-"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions".The surest way to destroy the planet is to give everyone what they want, or even what they need.
P377 Fig 17.4Maybe I'm just dense but it is not obvious from this figure why the greenhouse effect causes more than 100 units to be radiated.
P378 left col top-"because of cycling..."Again it's just not obvious where the extra 30% comes from---the earth's core?
P403 rt col top--- and elsewhere:The costs of health care or of various diseases are almost always hugely wrong-ie, 180 deg in the wrong direction!Like the calculation of costs and benefits of many things, they deliberately or unconsciously(monkey psychology again)fail to represent the true situation.If one includes the savings resulting from decreased costs to society(ie medical costs, ecological costs of all kinds etc-to say nothing of the personal costs in suffering of patients and relatives)in the long term due to shortened life spans one gets very different results(eg, the huge coststurn into huge benefits).Amazingly, as this is an utterly taboo subject, this was pointed out in a report by an accountant for one of the large tobacco companies a couple years ago but of course they immediately issued an apology.It is only possible for the rich countries to ignore the facts and it is highly likely this will change also by mid-century when even the US welfare system(social security etc) will be bankrupt(just dial the SS 800 tel #) and the national debt will likely be soaring past $40 trillion and neither the US nor anyone will have the money or materials to feed the world(or to be its policeman). So from a strictly rational and humane point of view governments should do everything possible to encourage smoking.
Also, calling smoking control a pollution control measure is both wrong(as the decreased death and debility will clearly produce far more pollution of other kinds) and right, as we could then include population control as a form of pollution control and the only one which is really cost effective and permanent!
P414 and elsewhere:list of things-- What can you do?Infinitely greater impact by not having children or preventing others from having them.Failing this, working for any social measure that will decrease the population or GDP of your own country or others, eg, opposing the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, the WTO, construction of any kind anywhere, any type of Globalization, use of agricultural chemical and fertilizers, dams, irrigation projects, roads, public health projects, immunization, antibiotics etc etc , and spreading abortion, birth control, knowledge about the coming collapse of planetary ecology and the idea that every mother and baby are enemies of life on earth.All the listed measures do a little but in the end they are really just a sham.
Rt. Col. Bottom and elsewhere throughout the text.I think its critical to make everyone understand that the environment is so fragile(or people so destructive) that serious and often irreversible damage was being done on smaller ecosystems-especially in semiarid areas-- in prehistoric times and ever since. E.g., just a couple of many: archeologists a few years ago studied an ancient village in the middle east and found that in just a decade or so the plaster floors became mud ones as the wood available for making lime disappeared. Here and many other places they can see pollen changes that show the elimination or drastic reduction of some plants. Even Attenborough give some examples in his famous programs-the Roman's destruction of the ecosystem on the N. African coast by a few decades of farming and the desertification of Greece and the destruction ofEphesusby human activities in the dry surrounding hills.The disappearance of large animals in many areas coincident with occupation by early humans(eg Australia ca 50K years ago).
P434Case Study:As I said elsewhere, "helping" Malawi now harms them and everyone else in the long run and the only models we should want to spread are one child families, declining GDP,no destruction of nature whatsoever and a very modest living standard.
P449 rt col middle-"surely these are goals worth pursuing".Surely not!The last thing the world needs is more and healthier people!Only if any kind of "help" is inextricably linked to population control and other environmental measures should it be given to anyone anywhere.Those who will not place the survival of the ecosphere above their own interests do not deserve any help nor even status as human beings.And yes, same for Indians or New Yorkers!
P455 In Depth rt col center re arsenic in Bangladesh water.No sane, honest, informed person should want to do anything to save them from the consequences of their own genetic greed unless they could be forced to become responsible citizens of the world at the same time(ie mandatory pop. and other environmental controls).
P468 left col top---As pointed out before, it is incontrovertible that misery and suffering will NOT be avoided but increased by providing sanitation to the world.
P468left col re "taking" of private land by the government.Up to now the world has operated on the most primitive, undemocratic, unecological and totally self centered principles.The people who "own" the land and money and resources have "taken" it from the planet and all other people and other creatures without real(in my view) authorization or justification.So, the government(ie, the people or the world) is justified in "taking" them back.Yes of course they all have some rationalization but if you take a long term global view, its all just theft.Of course one could say this makes all current laws and government moot and I say -"Now you are getting it!"
P484rt col top---'waste of ...resources".Wonderful!---the sooner all the energy sources are gone,the better.
P485 rt col middle----"methane is ten times.."but on pg 387 you say its 20 to 30 x as effective as C02.
P488---Nobody seems to realize that Chernobyl is the only meaningful nature reserve in the world and a model for what could be done elsewhere. Only if it causes a quick and certain death to use it will anything be protected.
P494rt col---I don't have the reference handy but I recall that if most of the worlds energy ever comes from fission(and much more so from fusion) not only will it devastate the ecology of many rivers and large areas of the sea(cooling water) but the heat will likely produce a significant acceleration of the greenhouse effect.
Table 22.2----these yields are over useful life of the equipment or what and they are the total earnings/total costs or total energy yield in BTU/total energy input in BTU or?
P511 Table 22.3 ---Yes the efficiency of some fuel cells may be 40% provided you do NOT count the energy needed to produce the fuel and the cell and transport and maintain and dispose of them etc. and of course the energy and materials for deal with the pollution they make and the consequences of the C02, plastic, heat pollution etc.Of course as they note someplace there are major hidden and subsidized costs for all energy sources, foods, jobs etc etc.
Rt. Col bottom-same comments for biomass re hidden costs(financial, health, ecological etc) of production, transportation,pollution, disposal etc.
P514 rt col. Middle---"contain 4.8 billion gigajoules"--- OK but see my comments on p513 re the costs(energy etc) to get this biofuel and use it and dispose of it and deal with the consequences and much of this 4.8 will disappear and, as with using anything for any reason on a large scale,the long term consequences re financial and ecological costs may make it a better choice to just forget the whole thing.
P515 left col top re fuel alcohol production and "grain surpluses".... It is a certainty that this situation ( surpluses, space, topsoil, low cost chemicals etc)will not last more than a few decades, so again if one looks at the global long term situation, or even just at Brazil's I think one will come to a very different conclusion as to what really makes sense.
P533 left col top-and throughout the book--Of course there is a large degree of arbitrariness in how anything is to be valued but this is one of the key ecological concepts and mostly misunderstood or ignored(deliberately!). A can of coke costs say 75 cents to buy retail but the real costs include the energy, soil loss, other ecological damage and pollution created to produce and transport (and dispose of wastes) the sugar, flavorings, and above all the aluminum in the can. Most of this is hidden (ie, subsidized in various ways by taxes or ecological, health etc., consequences that are just ignored-ie, other people or the future has to deal with them).So from the perspective of someone whose life is being destroyed by a bauxite mine or a sugar plantation or from say 50 years in the future we might value the coke at $5 or 10 or 100.The markup increases as we go further into the future and as the complexity , size and cost of the item increases.A reasonable current value for a car might be 5 or 10 times its actual costs and food the same (but highly variable)as it costs topsoil, chemicals that devastate the ecology etc and a house varies depending on its materials, where it is and what was or would be on that land now etc.
P554-left col bottom.-"tragically high" infant death rates.Of course many beg to differ and say its neither a tragedy nor nearly high enough.An infant who grows to adulthood and reproduces uses vast resources that may increase by say 10 to 100 times if it has eg, greatgrandchildren and the total of misery they suffer and cause others to suffer is hardly negligible.
P565-left col bottom..."feasible benefit"---As I have stated elsewhere it is very clear that there is a huge LOSS to the world and no benefit at all if ones takes a global long term view.
Rt col middle---"China has done....".All the sources I see show that China's cities are swelling rapidly and the population is increasing some 12 to 15 million a year and as for much of the third world the std of living is improving on the average but most of it is by a small minority and this is all being done by destroying their own and the world's future.
P584 Global Issues----Yes of course this is the standard refrain and we know what they mea,n but for reasons stated before, I maintain its obvious that making the poor rich(or the rich richer) does not REALLY make the world a better place but inevitably destroys it faster.In the global long term view development is destruction.
P591---Table 25.7 first line--One hopes they will "respect " the world, but in fact regardless of what anyone says we all do "resect" it!
Horrible.
Any text that advises poverty-stricken Africans to use solar-powered stoves as opposed to wood-burning fires to cook their food in attempt to lower energy consumption has gone too far off the deep end as to be a suitable college source.
Too many typos, too opinionated in the wrong places, not opinionated enough in the right places, just horrible. Wretched book. And to think, my family spent over $100 on the package. Ack! [Ask your prof to use one of the labs to research better textbooks if this is all he/she can come up with.]
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