Healing the Planet: Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis

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. (Oct.)