Explores how overpopulation, over consumption, and political and economic inequity are increasingly determining today's politics and shaping humankind's future, and demonstrates ways these often-neglected factors influence each other.
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Authors Paul Ehrlich (Bing Professor of Population Studies and Professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University) and Anne Ehrlich intend this book to serve as an alarm klaxon shattering the complacency of the general public and politicians with respect to overpopulation, overconsumption, and the degradation of the worldwide environment. Unfortunately, this noble purpose is sabotaged by some sloppy argument. For example, in a section titled "Technofixes: Nuclear Power?" discussion of the pros and cons of nuclear power mysteriously slides into warnings about the deteriorated state of Russian nuclear armament command-and-control systems, and ends with a non-sequitur call for greater U.S. investment in the maintenance of Russian nuclear submarines. The list of references cited is extensive, but their use is maddeningly haphazard: the number of French deaths in the 2003 heat wave is supported, for example, but a key assertion of Chapter 4, that "most people in both rich and poor countries still view growth in consumption as an unalloyed good," is undocumented. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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