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31 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding rebuttal of corporate funded contrarian rhetoric, April 4, 2001
By A Customer
This book should be essential reading in the curriculum of all undergraduate biology classes. However, I should initially say that it is patently obvious that none of the readers below who have attacked the book or the authors have even bothered to read it, to digest its message, and to evaluate the significance of its content. At present, a largely uninformed society is being bombarded with more anti-environmental rhetoric than at any time in human history, in books, magazine articles, by right-wing radio show pundits, on television, and, more recently, over the internet, and we have to ask ourselves, why.Like Paul and Anne, I am a senior scientist, an ecologist, whose research focuses on understanding the link between micro-evolutionary, largely 'stochastic' processes occurring over small scales, and emergent, homeostatic poperties, operating at much larger spatial and temporal scales. Consider that our species is simplifying natural systems worldwide with staggering and worrying efficiency, through the combined activities of paving, ploughing, damming, dredging, slashing and burning, logging, dousing in persistent organic pollutants, alteration the carbon and nitrogen cycles, co-opting much of primary production, and ultimately threatening the sustainability of systems upon which we are utterly dependent for our survival. Whether we like to admit it or not, ecosystems and the species they contain generate the conditions which nurture life and humanity, though the services the freely provide us. But, in this world of wounds, we - the ecological community - have barely begun to understand the stupendous complexity underpinning the continuation and existence of these natural systems, and therefore we have no real idea how much they can be reduced in size before they begin to break down, and fail to generate the life-sustaining services which permit our existence. Now, contrast our uncertainty as to the outcome of the planetary "experiment" humanity is conducting on its own life-support systems with the wholly anti-scientific rhetoric being generated from a number of generally right wing, corporate-funded think tanks, political idealogues and public relations firms. Employing a variety of tactics, they are attempting to manipulate public opinion, as well as that of policy makers, to deflect from the real need for societal and corporate reform, in essence to maintain a "business-as-usual" mentality while our planet slides gradually but inexorably towards ecological catastrophe. The aim is simple: to ensure corporate profit maximisation through the prevention of sensible regulations being implemented to protect public health and the environment. This tactic, of course, can only succeed if the public perceives environmental issues as being of secondary importance to other issues. In effect, they are "lobbying for lethargy", and sadly, this strategy is succeeding. I haven't the time nor the space here to elucidate upon the myriad of ways in which the "brownlash", as the Ehrlich's aptly call it, are manipulating science to provide a pre-determined outcome, but this book does a better job than I ever could. However, let me point out that Paul and Anne make an outstanding point of expanding upon the areas in which the scientific community is in broad agreement. There is consensus over the effects of humanity in perturbing the biogeochemistry of carbon and nitrogen cycles, which operate over stupendously large scales. These effects are manifested through changes not only in global climate patterns, but also in eutrophication of the biosphere. There is also consensus amongst our peers over the effects that humanity is having on land cover, through some of the processes that I discussed earlier. I should again reiterate that none of these areas are in dispute amongst our colleagues around the world. None. What we cannot accurately predict with any certainty at present is the effects that these changes will have on natural ecosystems. There will be ecological consequences, but we cannot, with any degree of statitical certainty, say exactly what these will be. However, given our limited understanding of ecosystem functioning, they are likely to be severe, and will not only have direct effects upon human society but will exacerbate the current extinction episode currently underway. Although ecosystems undeniably exhibit some resilience to human-inflicted change, even at current rates, there is no guarantee that they will be so resilient in delivering to us the free flow of services upon which we depend. For their part, the contrarians are not taking this consensus lying down, and have attempted, deviously in my view, to apply the principle of uncertainty over the outcome of processes that we know are occurring to describe the entire process itself, thereby rendering mute any public and political will to address these problems. Through greenwashing, aggressive mimicry, scapegoating and cynicism, the voices of a few dissident, bought-and-paid for scientists are being blown out of all proportion to create the image that issues such as species extinction rates, global warming and ozone depletion are broadly disputed amongst the scientific community, whereas they are not. As the authors correctly observe, there may not be many contrarians out there amongst our peers but their paymasters have bought them veritable megaphones. Ignore the reviews of those who haven't actually read the book - their minds were made up long ago - and read the volumes of peer-reviewed scientific evidence the Ehrlichs use to counter the brownlash.
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