Useless arithmetic: why environmental scientists can't predict the future

Abstract

This book is about disastrous decisions made on critical environmental issues. The authors document multiple cases ranging from nuclear waste disposal to plant invasion. Between the initial acceptance of a particular environmental issue and the eventual decision for action (or inaction), they show that something all too often goes very wrong. The cases they cite are unarguable, and they are right, at least about the outcome, in each instance: extremely bad decisions have been made that have led to situations that should outrage all of us. These have included the almost complete depletion of cod stocks on George’s Bank and the engineering of beaches that has had the reverse effect of what was purportedly intended, the saving of those beaches. Having been living recently in North Carolina, I am aware of the role of one of the authors, Orrin Pilkey, in combating beach development. He has stood up to the rampant and unthinking commercial exploitation of the coastline and exposed the obfuscation of developers and politicians as well as the miscalculations of coastal engineers. He is a hero of the environmental movement in North Carolina and deserves a hearing, even with a book having a title as provocative as this one.