Population and environment : rethinking the debate /

Opposing positions in the debate to which the subtitle refers are (a) that a growing population is the major threat to the earth's finite resources and therefore to the environment, and (b) that continued population growth can be handled because human ingenuity will produce new technologies and substitutes for diminishing raw materials. Proponents of the former view, the "doomdayers," argue that there is a direct and strong relationship between continued global population growth and a progressively degraded environment. Those who hold the second view, the "cornucopians," deny that any such relationship exists. Both positions depend for support on macro, global evidence. The major emphasis of this volume is the need to examine population-environment relationships in the social, political, and economic contexts in which they occur, whether local, national, or global. Further, the very general concepts of population and environment must be more clearly specified if research results are to be useful to policy makers. Generally well-written and accessible (only one chapter is technical), the contributions make some impressive steps to achieve these and other objectives. Substantively, chapters address a number of environmental problems in various Third World locales: desertification, agricultural intensification, deforestation, resource extraction, and urbanization. In fact, the major shortcoming of the collection is the limited attention given to developed countries. Upper-division undergraduates and above. K. Hadden; University of Connecticut