Healing the Planet : Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis

The authors highlight critical environmental problems and suggest national and international measures by which the problems can be alleviated

This catalogue of global gloom is pierced by few solutions worthy of the authors' stature as leading environmentalists. Healing on a planetary scale, the Erlichs ( The Population Explosion ) demonstrate, will require worldwide management of population, energy consumption and technology by scientists and political economists. The thesis is well argued, with 65 pages of references and notes--but the reader is left grasping for places to begin the treatment. The Erlichs, however, are more concerned with rigorous, almost academic analysis of "the more general problem of assuring the continuance of ecosystem services" and its counterpart, "the human predicament." Readers are given a course on the biological crisis zones, including summaries of global warming, "unsustainable" agriculture and a compact chapter on energy and the environment. For most readers, these alarms will seem like an echo of many other recent books.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Ehrlichs, best known for The Population Bomb (1970) and The Population Explosion (1990), say here that the present book was written ``to fill in the rest of the picture, to explain how overconsumption and the use of faulty technologies contribute to the deterioration of the environment.'' But overpopulation remains their major bugaboo as they survey the global problems associated with energy consumption, global warming, ozone depletion, unsustainable agriculture, and various forms of air, land, and water pollution. They ``summarize'' the blame for all of this with the equation ``I=PAT'' (impact = population x affluence [as a measure of consumption] x technology), pointing out that as P increases so does T; but with or without that formula they offer no significant new insights on these often discussed problems. And, title and subtitle notwithstanding, they emphasize the problems more than the solutions and never get down to nitty-gritty ``strategies'' for implementation. Aside from limiting population growth, their most frequent suggestion, whatever the problem, is to discourage environmentally damaging habits by imposing consumption fees and taxes and marketable ``depletion quotas.'' So: what we have here, besides the venerable Ehrlich name, is an overview from their perspective, for their followers. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Biologist and demographer Paul Ehrlich is a professor of environmental studies at Stanford, where Anne Ehrlich is a research associate in biology. Since the publication of their book The Population Bomb ( LJ 10/1/68), they have been in the forefront of the overpopulation/environment controversy. This new book is designed as a companion volume to the Ehrlichs' Population Explosion ( LJ 4/1/90), which focuses on the population factor in the environmental crisis. This work concentrates on energy, global warming, the ozone layer, acid rain, pollution, and a host of other problems. Provocative, engrossing, and readable, it is recommended for all libraries.
- Richard Shotwell, Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Mass.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.