Simple things won't save the earth /

Tropical environmentalist Hunter offers his analysis of the scope of the global ecological crisis and the inadequacy of responses in this brief, original, thought-provoking but ultimately frustrating book--frustrating not only because he raises more issues than he can fully explore in so short a space (e.g., the function of isoprene in the atmosphere), but more so because he dismisses the efficacy of individual action and accountability ("think globally, act locally") without offering a practical alternative. Adopting the para rubber tree as his unifying symbol of the environmental dilemma, he considers a scenario for actually achieving a renewable natural resource for a key industrial raw material through the worldwide planting of 30 million acres of rubber trees, only to dismiss the idea in the end as unattainable given political and economic realities and a potential nightmare for the millions whose labors would be required to feed the global demand for this commodity. This straw man approach is used mostly to highlight the impossibility of lesser measures to redress the imbalances in the use of nature and to shatter any comfortable illusions about "simple ways to save the Earth," but prescriptive steps for achieving the massive corrections required are lacking. As Hunter correctly observes, the challenge is not to "save the Earth," for the planet will get by without us; it is, rather, to ensure our own survival while somehow preserving life as we wish to live it. General readers. L. W. Moore; formerly, University of Kentucky