Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future

""The time has come to write a book about efforts being made to minimize the seriousness of environmental problems."" With that opening sentence, the authors (The Stork and the Plow) take on what they see as the purveyors of environmental disinformation. In a lively style, they systematically dismantle claims allegedly made in recent books--by the likes of Gregg Easterbrook, Stephen Budiansky, Rush Limbaugh, Dixy Lee Ray and Julian Simon--that global warming is fiction, ozone depletion should be of no concern and that the earth can support many times its current population. Chapters cover population growth, food supply, natural resources, species diversity, toxic substances, global warming and economics. In each, direct quotations from the anti-environmentalists named above are presented, dissected and refuted. With ample documentation and a great deal of input from some of the world's most renowned environmental scientists, such as Stephen Schneider, Peter Raven and Nobel laureate Sherwood Roland, the overall effect is powerful. 25,000 first printing; author tour. (Oct.)