Is the Earth in the Balance?
Review of the re-issued Earth in the Balance:
Ecology and the Human Spirit
No environmental book of the past decade has provoked more discussion than Vice President Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. Thus it is only appropriate that as our Veep seeks the ultimate political promotion, his environmental tome is re-issued. No substantive changes were made for the new edition of Earth in the Balance (Houghton Mifflin, 431 pages, $26), other than the addition of a new Foreword. Thus, Gore still compares those who do not accept his diagnosis of global crisis with those who ignored the rise of Nazism and questions whether it is a fair exchange to cut down endangered trees for their medicinal value in order to save human lives.
As before, Gore believes that the globe’s ecological crisis is a sign of a deeply “dysfunctional” society, and only making environmental concerns “the central organizing principle” of civilization can save us from the brink. What might this mean from a policy standpoint? Gore provides some answers with are worth considering in the months ahead. His proposals include: a substantial new tax on gasoline, coal and other fossil fuels, sharp increases in fuel economy standards for automobiles, a “Global Marshall Plan” under which the U.S. would transfer “almost $100 billion a year” to other countries to promote population control, “environmentally appropriate technologies,” and a new generation of environmental treaties. Gore even suggests that “Ultimately, part of the solution for the environmental crisis may well lie in our ability to achieve a better balance between the sexes, leavening the dominant male perspective with a healthier respect for female ways of viewing the world.”
Gore says he welcomes scrutiny of his book and he “reaffirms” his policy conclusions. All the better, in his view, to launch the “environment decade.” That simply goes to show that the Vice President’s environmental views are as out of balance today as they were in 1992.