Ecology, Economics, Ethics: The Broken Circle.

Although this often difficult book is bound to remain within the cloisters of academia, it will be useful there. The authors run through the familiar list of environmental problems and controversies, but they are not intent on solutions. Their aim is to raise difficult questions of morality and economics that must be answered before we understand whether we have chosen the right solutions.

David Ehrenfeld, of Rutgers University, asks interesting questions on the ethics of intervening in natural systems. If we must manage, should we focus on saving species or on saving biological processes? Since management means choices, what principles tell us how to choose between bighorn sheep and soil microbes?

For Gene Likens, of the New York Botanical Garden, his acid-rain research leads him to ask several questions about how scientists should publish and publicize their research. Should they provide their material to people who are likely to use it to manipulate public opinion? Who should be responsible for the notorious inaccuracy of news stories about science? He points out that the New York Times mis-captioned a photo of dead trees that accompanied a story on acid rain when in fact the trees probably were not killed by acid rain. But the photo dramatized the story's point that air pollution might be killing trees. Is that white lie okay?

This book raises its ethical questions through familiar issues and makes a convincing case that ethics ought to be a part of the education of everyone who will sooner or later advocate solutions to environmental questions.