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The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About--Because They Helped Cause Them Hardcover – Illustrated, April 22, 2008
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Talk about really inconvenient truths--that's one of the many you'll find in Iain Murray's rollicking exposé of environmental blowhards who waste more energy, endanger more species, and actually kill more people (yes, that's right) than the environmental villains they finger. Did you know that estrogen from birth control and "morning after" pills is causing male fish across America to develop female sex organs? Funny how "pro-choice" and "environmentalist" liberals never talk about that. Or how about this: the Live Earth concert to "save the planet" released more CO2 into the atmosphere than a fleet of 2,000 Humvees emit in a year? We hear a lot about AIDS in Africa, but the number one killer of children in much of Africa is malaria--and guess who was responsible for banning the pesticide that used to have malaria under control? Iain Murray, a sprightly conservative environmental analyst with a long record of skewering liberal hypocrisy, has dug up seven of the all-time great environmental catastrophes caused by the Left and exposed them in The Really Inconvenient Truths. Murray lays bare:
* How ethanol, the liberals' favorite fuel, is destroying the world's rainforests--and could cause global food shortages
* How Al Gore's hero Rachel Carson cost the lives of millions of Africans through her efforts to ban DDT
* How the environmentalists have covered up the polluting effects of contraceptive and chemical abortion drugs
* How the Endangered Species Act actually endangers species
* How Gore's vision of greater state control over the economy has already produced some of the greatest environmental disasters in history
All of us want a planet with clean air and clean water, vibrant forests, healthy animal populations, and glorious open space. But liberal environmentalists aren't the ones to deliver it. In fact, they've made the planet worse, while old-fashioned property rights, unpopular hunters, and the innovative engine of capitalism have made it better. The facts are all here, in a book that Al Gore would rather burn than read.
- Print length354 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherRegnery Publishing
- Publication dateApril 22, 2008
- Dimensions6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101596980540
- ISBN-13978-1596980549
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Editorial Reviews
From the Inside Flap
Talk about really inconvenient truths--that's one of the many you'll find in Iain Murray's rollicking exposé of environmental blowhards who waste more energy, endanger more species, and actually kill more people (yes, that's right) than the environmental villains they finger. Did you know that estrogen from birth control and "morning after" pills is causing male fish across America to develop female sex organs? Funny how "pro-choice" and "environmentalist" liberals never talk about that. Or how about this: the Live Earth concert to "save the planet" released more CO2 into the atmosphere than a fleet of 2,000 Humvees emit in a year? We hear a lot about AIDS in Africa, but the number one killer of children in much of Africa is malaria--and guess who was responsible for banning the pesticide that used to have malaria under control? Iain Murray, a sprightly conservative environmental analyst with a long record of skewering liberal hypocrisy, has dug up seven of the all-time great environmental catastrophes caused by the Left and exposed them in The Really Inconvenient Truths. Murray lays bare:
* How ethanol, the liberals' favorite fuel, is destroying the world's rainforests--and could cause global food shortages
* How Al Gore's hero Rachel Carson cost the lives of millions of Africans through her efforts to ban DDT
* How the environmentalists have covered up the polluting effects of contraceptive and chemical abortion drugs
* How the Endangered Species Act actually endangers species
* How Gore's vision of greater state control over the economy has already produced some of the greatest environmental disasters in history
All of us want a planet with clean air and clean water, vibrant forests, healthy animal populations, and glorious open space. But liberal environmentalists aren't the ones to deliver it. In fact, they've made the planet worse, while old-fashioned property rights, unpopular hunters, and the innovative engine of capitalism have made it better. The facts are all here, in a book that Al Gore would rather burn than read.
From the Back Cover
--JOHN R. LOTT, economist and author of Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't
"With detailed analysis and insight borne of his unique experience, Iain Murray reveals the consequences for which the `environmentalist' establishment--and their political and media enablers--have yet to be held accountable, too busy rushing off to once again wreak destruction in the name of another `greatest threat:' global warming. Murray's account almost makes one yearn for an international criminal court. Almost."
--CHRISTOPHER C. HORNER, bestselling author of The Politically Incorrect GuideTM to Global Warming and Environmentalism
"Iain Murray, again and again, demonstrates that the motivating passion for environmentalism is too often a desire for political control first and environmental improvement second. He has the keenest of eyes for spotting where science ends and utopianism takes its place--and rationally explaining why this is folly. Iain Murray understands and recounts in vivid detail that the control environmentalists seek is not only fool's gold, but is actually the fastest route to a less healthy environment and a poorer society. The only reliable guarantee for sustained environmental health is precisely the freedom and property rights so many environmentalists see as the cause of all our problems."
--JONAH GOLDBERG, bestselling author and editor-at-large, National Review Online
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Regnery Publishing (April 22, 2008)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 354 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1596980540
- ISBN-13 : 978-1596980549
- Item Weight : 1.33 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,675,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,337 in Environmental Policy
- #3,342 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism
- #6,817 in Technology (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Iain Murray is the Competitive Enterprise Institute's vice president of strategy. For the past decade with the Institute, he has written and researched on financial regulation, labor, employment and immigration regulation, and free market environmentalism.
Iain is married with two children and lives in Northern Virginia. He was born in the United Kingdom and worked for the Thatcher and Major governments before privatizing himself out of a job and coming to America to marry the love of his life. Iain is a member of the Church of England but his wife and children are Roman Catholic.
He also lectures regularly in Europe and the Mediterranean, in places as diverse as Belgium, France, Bulgaria, Germany, Cyprus, Israel, and Turkey. Iain considers himself a Europhile Euroskeptic, and was runner up (with Rory Broomfield) in the Institute of Economic Affairs 100,000 Euros "Brexit Prize" in 2014.
He writes short articles regularly for FEE.org, National Review, The American Spectator, and other commentary sites. Iain has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Financial Times, and on broadcast news such as the BBC, NBC Nightly News, Fox New Channel, CCTV, and Al-Jazeera.
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(1) Global Warming & Al Gore. Although Gore and the media claim there is general scientific consensus on global warming and that the warming is due to man's intervention, that statement is false. At the time of this review (12/08), there is evidence that the aveage world temperature has been increasing about a degree per century, but there is no irrefutable evidence that this is coming from any actions of man. (See Solomon, "The Deniers") Al Gore is making millions with his propaganda efforts to panic the American population with a doomsday scenerio that cannot be supported by scientific evidence. Sounds like a scurrilious politician to me.
(2) The banning of DDT based on the propaganda work by Rachel Carson reversed the control of malaria and other diseases that had been achieved by the 1960s, and tens of millions of humans have died as a result. This is well-trodden ground, fully supportable by scientific evidence, but has not been reversed due to the environmental lobby. Even worse, Carol Browder, Clinton's head of the EPA, even banned Diazinon, the most effective controller of ticks and other pests since DDT, and now Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Fever are exploding in the US. One can argue that environmentalists are abject racists in seeking to ban the effective control of malaria in Africa, not caring about the people there because they are black, but I invite them to come to my ranch and spend a week outside. They will be bitten from one to five times by ticks, and I would like to see their lily-white, elitist reaction when they realize the possibility that they contracted Lyme disease.
(3) Ethanol. The problem of burning food for energy instead of eating it for survival is covered extremely well. As a cattle rancher (horrors, I raise animals for FOOD!), I see the rise in the price of corn due to its diversion into a source for ethanol. Using ethanol in place of gasoline will cause widespread hunger throughout the Third World, but again, environmentalists are not concerned since they are all yellow, brown or black anyway and we need to start lowering the population. (When will the 3rd World wake up and see what is going on?)
(4) Contraception pollutants: Estrogen released into the water is drastically altering animal reproduction. Again, this is based on solid evidence, but totally ignored by environmentalists who see this as a by-product of the wonman's right to control her own body and enjoy sex whenever she desires. OK, I understand the issue, but why can't we talk about it? Oh, I forgot, one doesn't point out the "unintended consequences."
(5) Yellowstone & Forest Fire Control. We have gone back and forth on the issue of fighting fires or allowing nature to take its course. However, allowing the forests to build up extensive amounts of underbrush and then attempting a "controlled burn" is a recipe for disaster. And so it has proved. Particularly when the Government bans logging or the cutting of fire control roads and the like. The moral: government management is worse than private ownership and management. Again, the evidence is irrefutable.
(6) The Cuyahoga River on fire. This is the weakest of the cases, but the fire happened because the State of Ohio issued permits for dumping into the river over the objections of the local Clevelanders. Cleveland had already taken steps to clean up the river (and Lake Erie), but higher government intervention brought about the debacle. The moral here is that the more remote a government is from the scene, the less effective it is (for example, FEMA.) So why are we attempting to interject the Federal Government into everything?
(7)Endangered Species. Yep, this Act has had a host of unintended consequences, all bad, and the entire idea is probably so badly flawed as to be unworkable. In many cases, the Government's right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, and ecologically insignificant insects and animals are considered much more important than human beings. Have you ever noticed how animal rights activitists love animals but hate people? (Other people, of course.)
(8) State Planning (Communism) At Work. The case is about the disappearance of the vast majority of the Aral Sea on the altar of state planning. Once again, the actions of a powerful government, unstoppable by local individuals, wreaked an ecological disaster.
So the answer? Return the land to the people through local control and private ownership. Oh, I forgot (& here's where the liberals come in), liberals and environmentalists always know what is best for us, and their answer is always another federal agency or government regulation. Welcome to fuddle, muddle, and catastrophy.
This is an excellent book and should be required reading in all American high schools.
Murray shows at the very beginning that the environmental movement focuses on (1) identifying a cause and laws requiring immediate passage, (2) creating an apocalyptic scenario, (3) claiming a threat to children, (4) donning the mantle of science while dismissing any (and all) scientific evidence that contradicts their position (and cause), (5) creating a clamor that rules the debate, and (6) defending ruthlessly all measures. Basically the movement is no different than leninism, communism, and nazi-ism for openers. It is the blue print for totalitarianism and I concur with Murray that totalitarian control is the goal of the environmental movement.
The following quote caught my eye as a scientist (geology) and as a former state Sea Grant director. "In a world of increasingly devoid of moral authority, the supposed impartiality of science provides a seemingly objective source of authority" (P. 51-52). That authority is a major threat to the environmental movement.
In my experience, the principles and methodology of science have been under attack from several quarters during the past 25 years. In Europe, university scientists who attain the rank of "professor" are asked, now-a-days, to spend their time serving on government panels so "science has a seat at the table". It means time away from teaching and research. Classes are taught by junior faculty with the "professor" making what are tantamount to guest appearances in classes in his/her area of expertise. More and more of their research is handled by graduate students with minimal supervision. Meanwhile, others at "the table" in these government panels also have demands and thus place science in the untenable position of moving from its impartiality (It's called conflict of interest).
I saw this first hand as a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow at the Vrije University of Amsterdam in 1989. Since then, it has only gotten worse.
As a state Sea Grant director, I observed some of this first hand also. Scientific FACTS were denigrated by environmental activists because they were inconvenient and stood in the way of achieving environmental goals. Those goals normally did not consider the consequences of their actions including economic consequences for the working class and the working poor. Hence the affluence, elitism, and racism of this movement. One rarely saw minorities or working class people at meetings called or promoted by environmental activists, for instance.
Murray's book is replete with examples of environmentalism gone wrong that illustrate this point persuasively. The banning of DDT has caused a devastating INCREASE of malaria in Africa (a form of environmental racism?). The current mandates to manufacture ethanol has had severe consequences for the global food supply. The development of certain pharmaceuticals, including birth control pills, has lead to deformities in fish as these pharmaceuticals are excreted from the human body into waste water discharge points where fish habitats occur. The misplaced protection of some "endangered species" has hurt economic development and progress when studies show many of these species were hardly threatened (but some were; however, no retraction of the endangered species from the list of protected animals was implemented after their populations were restored to well above acceptable levels).
So what's in store if the environmental movement takes over? Just visit the Aral Sea in the Former Soviet Union. This is a classic case of central environmental planning going from worse to disastrous. This chapter should be required reading for all citizens.
The bottom line of consequences was well stated by Murray. He stated "Liberal environmentalism, with its focus on box-checking rules, preference for words over substance, and its obsession with punishment of the guilty, has on too many occasions failed to prevent environmental damage, and in the meantime has harmed the economy and the humans whose well-being the economy represents" (p. 296). That, in a nutshell, is what the environmental movement has wrought. We should be grateful to Murray for stating it so eloquently.
Obviously the negative reviewers have their own reasons for not liking the book when they 'claimed' to read this book and proceeded to call much of the writing opinion based with ad hominem attacks. Then they proceeded with their own ad hominem attacks (and per the structure described in this very book) claimed falshoods and stuck to their guns to the last bitter sentence.
Having information that challenges your views isn't comfortable so normally I would look for a book that presents both sides of an argument. With the mainstream media dominance that clearly leans toward the eco alarmist side of every topic this is nearly impossible. So now entire books must be written with evidence against the mainstreams argument as the pro side is entirely over covered and saturates nearly all new information.
For the intellectually honest among us, this book is a good read and presents facts that can be checked to confirm our beliefs or to check that our beliefs may be wrong and challenge ourselves to self reflect.
Top reviews from other countries
I enjoyed the chapter on Al Gore. Although most of the facts are known, the author presents them with quite a bit of humor. But there are also things I can't agree with! In the author mentions what someone said about the reality of energy-starved Africa. This gentleman, John Christy, wants to have every home in Africa fitted with a microwave oven. Maybe a lot of people are not aware but microwave ovens seem to be a danger for the health. I suppose that the reason for them to be constantly advertised as a great household appliance is a financial one, from the side of the companies which make them. What is harmful to us will surely be just as harmful to the Africans?
Iain Murray is not at all a fan of Michael Moore, which I happen to like and invokes a lot Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, a book I have to confess I haven't read. I can't comment on his chapter about the use of DDT as I am not informed about the subject but... I have always thought that it was one of the chemicals we should be happy we got rid of? But then... these days it is often very difficult to know who is right and who is wrong because too many people are fueled by either misinformation or greed! Still too bad, if as he says, countries comply with the demands of aid donors instead of doing what is better for themselves and their people! Sad state of affairs.... The chapter on Ethanol is very interesting but he says that corn feeds us and the animals we eat and those which give us milk but.... were those animals or even us ever designed to eat corn? He says that one needs trucks to distribute ethanol but talking to someone who knows about the subject it seems that ethanol is carried in pipelines too!
I also enjoyed the chapter about Climate Change as a religion but not really his dislike of organic food. Sorry but if I can eat tasty, healthy food, I am not going to trade it for food that harms me but makes more financial sense! Still... I happen to be someone who gets quite annoyed by all this talk of saving the planet, the doom of the changing of the climate, etc. All nonsense supposed to relieve us of even more money and to keep people's minds occupied so that they don't think about more important issues! The climate his changing, has always changed! I am not saying we shouldn't live healthier lives and be more respectful of the planet but we can't give up living in order to save the planet, especially while there is so much waste and pollution going on, which no one talks about! I also have a completely different point of view on the growing world population. I do believe that we should have gone on trying to curb it instead of giving that up, filling our countries with foreigners and making sure everybody who would never have children now has loads! I do agree with those who say that the world is overpopulated, sorry and I don't live in the liberal environmentalist utopia!
One thing strikes me as odd... that a chapter starts with a certain theme, but then goes on with something completely different, a bit confusing! Therefore there are actually more than 7 inconvenient truths in this book. The chapter on the endangered species is also quite interesting and full of facts I ignored, not being an American. Still, saying that if you are a capitalist you are by nature an environmentalist goes a bit far! The thing is that this gentleman, as I said has his own agenda and if you agree with him this is the book for you, no doubt about it, if you don't, like I don't, then read it, take out whatever you find interesting and leave the rest for what it is, his opinion! I have to make sure in the future that I don't buy any more books written by members of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and no more hardcovers either as they might look very good in the bookshelf but are difficult to read with the cover always falling off!



