Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health! (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Tree-huggers may actually be squeezing the life out of the environment.

In a book that is alternately alarming, enlightening, ironic, and entertaining, award-winning journalist John Berlau explores the myriad ways in which shortsighted environmentalism actually endangers trees, wildlife, and people. In chapter after chapter, Berlau debunks myths and libels about:

• global warming and climate change
• the dangers of pesticides like DDT
• trees and pollution
• fuel economy and the auto industry
• the threat posed by asbestos
• the lifesaving role of dams and levees
• plans to "rewild" America

Mother Nature is not a gentle person, and Berlau's pointed reporting reveals the very real dangers to people and their environments when Eco-Freaks prevent us from restraining her.

"Berlau makes a powerful case. . . . Thinking environmentalists who read this book will be forced to revisit at least some of their most deeply held beliefs."
-Joel Himelfarb, Washington Times

"Berlau says a lot of things that are not generally known that needed to be said."
-Bruce N. Ames, recipient, National Medal of Science, 1998

Save the Planet . . . and Ourselves

In Eco-Freaks, award-winning journalist John Berlau provides a much needed and startling expose about how the environmental movement with its radical, shortsighted eco-activists has actually helped amplify the dangers of natural disasters and destroyed the lives and property of millions of Americans.

As Berlau writes, "America . . . is still mighty prosperous, but environmentalism is putting us on the brink of danger as well. As technology after technology that our grandparents put in place is being banned, and new technologies never even come to market, we risk a public-health disaster. Environmentalists have promoted all sorts of doomsday scenarios about population explosions and massive cancer crises from pesticides that have been shown to be false. But now, because we have done away with so many useful products based on those scares, we are in danger of an old-fashion doomsday returning, because we've lost what protected us from the wrath of nature. Indeed, as we will see throughout this book, public health hazards caused by environmental policies are already on the scene."

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (November 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595550674
• ISBN-13: 978-1595550675
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #649,004 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Group That Really Lends Itself to a PigeonHole, January 17, 2007

By	Gary M. Hetrick (Medina, Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Several reviews below are informative, correct but a bit long. Here's a quick overview. The Hoover Dam saves lives & prevents flooding. Environmentalists (Eco-Freaks) would like it blown up. There is no evidence DDT kills or even harms hardly anything. It can and has saved millions of lives. Eco-Freaks support it's ban. Asbestos is a fire prevention wonder and it's few negatives can easily be controlled. Eco-Freaks are against asbestos use. Trees put way more hydrocarbons in the atmosphere than cars. Eco-Freaks love trees and hate cars. The Netherlands has a wonder life-saving system of water & flood control. Eco-Freaks pursue lawsuits rather than allow a system like that to save lives in New Orleans. The book points out many other examples. Environmentalists are amazing in their consistent ability to be wrong on everything. Being stubbornly wrong in the face of mountains of contrary evidence propels them to honorary status with the liberal left. The brainlock that will not budge in the face of logic is the hallmark of the liberal left. The author presents the scientific backup that Eco-Freaks have chosen to ignore for decades. Here's hoping a few finally see the logic.

34 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shape your own Environmental Position, January 26, 2007

By	Kansas "Tom" (Kansas) - See all my reviews

Eco-Freaks is a must read if you honestly want alternative perspectives on environmentalism. Berlau shook up my thoughts what it means to be an environmentalist. Personally I focus on minimizing consumption, eco-friendly choices, and promoting a clean environment. While I love trees and have just renewed my Arbor Day Foundation membership, I have more freedom to enjoy fresh air and warm sunshine in the back yard. Humankind has and is altering the environment of the world daily. Did my American Indian ancestors have their way with the environment as much as they could? I definitely believe so. Before reading Eco-Freaks I was perplexed when visiting my extended family in Napoli. They were extremely grateful to see the death of their friends and family stop with the spraying of DDT when the US troops invaded the Italian peninsula during WWII. Did this save my wife's family from dying of Typhus? I can't imagine having the arrogance to tell the 25% of Neapolitan's dieing of Typhus during WWII that there might be longer term health risks so we can't help them. My father spent 2 years in the South Pacific during WWII. I can't image not saving my family and friends and the local population from Malaria without at least a critical debate. Given that the Gates foundation has listed Malaria as one of the top three health hazards in the world, shouldn't we at least critically review our stance? I hope that we can move to a level where we can have debates without labeling and marginalizing each others positions.

Berlau's insightful and down-to-earth writing style has me see that even the "greenest" environmentalist and the "worst" industrialist are more aligned than the "public debate" would have us think. Perhaps the greatest take-away from Berlau's Eco-Freaks is to really look at how our public debates on environmentalism are polarized into a very young "right" and "wrong" positions. This has the effect of hampering or eliminating dialogue on the subject at hand.
Berlau didn't give me all of the answers, but I am definitely more critically looking at the assumptions that I make and inherit from others.
-Tom

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Most Informative Expose, June 24, 2007

By	Crosslands (Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

Mr. Berlau has written a very informative expose of the environmentalists who are continuing to wreck havoc on the economy, health, and living standards of the United States and the world. Spcifically Berlau explains how the hard core environmentalists have banned DDT and help spread the vicious desease malaria to millions, stopped the use of abestos and added to the deaths from fire and the terror attack on the World Trade Center, place unreasonable restrictions on automobiles and automobile manufacturers, mismanaged forests and forest fire protection, and stopped dams and other means of flood control, thus causing the flooding of New Orleans during the Katrina hurricane. Berlau has a quite impressive rap sheet on the enviros.

Wisely, Mr. Berlau avoids discussing global warming. Instead he refers readers to the book Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years by Dennis Avery and S. Fred Singer. Thus Mr. Berlau does not have to repeat the arguments of Avery and Singer thru most of his book.

A particular sensational expose is of the politican and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt who wanted to do away with levees on the Missouri River. Babbitt ignorantly stated that no cities existed on the flood plain of the Missouri. In reality St. Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City and smaller towns lie along the Missouri and are protected by levees. Babbitt demonstrates the pernicious wilfull ignorance found all too often in the environmental movement.

Plainly it is time the United States and the world faced up to the problem of environmental extremism.