Our precarious habitat...; it's in your hands.9780471740650 Our precarious habitat...; it's in your hands. Benarde, Melvin A. Wiley-Interscience 2007 452 pages $43.00 Hardcover RA565 Benarde (associate director of the Environmental Studies Institute at Drexel U.) aims to debunk de·bunk tr.v. de·bunked, de·bunk·ing, de·bunks To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims of: debunk a supposed miracle drug. a number of what he views as alarmist a·larm·ist n. A person who needlessly alarms or attempts to alarm others, as by inventing or spreading false or exaggerated rumors of impending danger or catastrophe. myths concerning the environment and public health. He summarizes and explains the scientific literature regarding a wide variety of topics including alternative health practices, microbial microbial pertaining to or emanating from a microbe. microbial digestion the breakdown of organic material, especially feedstuffs, by microbial organisms. threats, food-born illnesses, global warming global warming, the gradual increase of the temperature of the earth's lower atmosphere as a result of the increase in greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution. , nuclear power, alternative and renewable energy Renewable energy utilizes natural resources such as sunlight, wind, tides and geothermal heat, which are naturally replenished. Renewable energy technologies range from solar power, wind power, and hydroelectricity to biomass and biofuels for transportation. sources, and so on. His goal is not to suggest that no environmental dangers exist, he calls for reducing fossil fuel uses in order to mitigate global warming for example, but instead to insist that discussion of them be based on sound scientific evidence. This is occasionally a weakness in that human and social factors are downplayed, such as when he largely dismisses the danger of irradiating food without addressing the criticism that food irradiation would give a false sense of security and encourage the continuation of unsafe agricultural practices by large agri-businesses. ([c]20072005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR) |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion