Population, Law, and the Environment.

In this intelligent and well-written book, Robert Hardaway makes a point-counterpoint challenge to Vice President Al Gore's views as expressed in Earth in the Balance. Hardaway seeks to answer the question of how national policies on family planning, abortion, immigration, education, and economic regulation affect the environment. He argues that governmental policies to date have been curative and reactive in nature, focusing on cleanup costs of past disasters and future limitations on emissions of pollutants. But what is the cost-effectiveness of such policies at a time when world population continues to expand exponentially? What should be the role of population control in environmental policy? The author explores these issues in-depth and attempts to synthesize current contemporary population theories with current environmental and social policies.