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Summary: Hard Green An irrational rant.
Review: ...This book is an insult to the intelligence of any thoughtful and even-handed reader. At least the book has an apt sub-title - "a conservative manifesto". It is a repetitive, ranting, & repellent polemic, that employs all the tools of a master propagandist, i.e. - half truths, unsupported (and usually insupportable) declarations, distortions of data, misinterpretations of history, confusions of cause and effect, generalizations from the particular, selective reasoning, etc. Unfortunately, the uncritical reader can be readily taken in by such devices when they are deftly employed, as they often are herein. In the first 185 pages, including the introduction, I have noted 36 egregious errors, distortions, or false arguments, and only 3 good but not original ideas. The author is so annoyingly and repetitively argumentative, that even when he makes a good point he repels this reader. I would like to note just three examples of flawed reasoning or argument: - The author presents a world of black and white - environmentalists are divided into two extreme fringe groups of "soft" and "hard" which are extensively defined. The great middle ground, inhabited by all of the environmentalists I have met, doesn't exist, and I have never met a "soft" as described herein. Given even the modest level of reasoning needed to be concerned for the environment, it is almost impossible to be such a "soft". I would have thought it nearly as unlikely to be such a "hard", but the author is proof that they do exist. - In rejecting "efficiency" as one practical environmental measure, the author presents selective data to argue that people simply increase consumption to offset all of the efficiency gains. Many pages later (when you have hopefully forgotten this alleged propensity), to support his "value of wealth" proposition, the author augues that individual appetites and therefore consumption are limited. The wealth proposition is probably valid, but the arguments are mutually contradictory. He can't have it both ways. - In dealing with pollution, the "softs" are accused of having a micro mind set, driven to the detriment of all by the immeasurably small. Later, on economics, these same softs suffer from a mind set that is macro, not micro, seeing only in collective terms. These "softs" must be as contradictory as the author. Two quite representative idiotic quotes will illustrate the general level of rational expression: "Conservation and economic exploitation are indeed irreconcilable, but only superficially, only in the snap-shot of the short term.--In the longer term, under sufficiently involved and smart private management there is no reason why both objectives cannot be advanced. Lumber companies need forests today and tomorrow, too." Unfortunately, the proviso about smart management rarely gets fulfilled in the real world. Without severe external pressure, greed usually beats smart. Has the author never heard of clear cutting or MacMillan Bloedel? "Emissions standards for chimneys and tailpipes now require the air to be cleaner coming out than when it came in the intake at the front end." When was the last time he breathed from a tail-pipe? The author writes well on politics, on Marxism vs. Capitalism, on planned economies vs. free markets, on limited government vs. socialist regulations, i.e. on left vs. right, but insisting that Green can, is, and must be equated to left and right is simply not tenable. There is just enough good in his recommendations to make the wrongheadedness of his global prescription a tragedy. On balance, for the reasonable, centered, thoughtful man, with a concern for the environment, more than "a little bit" of knowledge, and the ability to maintain a consistent and rational thought process, this screed boils down to a load of old cods-wallop. At the end, the only useful prescription presented is that we should prefer free market mechanisms to regulation when promoting environmentalism. Virtually all Greens support this idea. The only opposition seems to be the so-called "Carbon Lobby". I recommend the book highly to any extremists who thrive on irrational rants, or to narrow-minded libertarians who despise anything left of very far right.
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Summary: Read this Excerpt
Review: In case you think this book is a serious scholarly effort, here's an excerpt: " Cut down the last redwoods for chopsticks, harpoon the last blue whale for sushi, and the additional mouths fed will nourish additional human brains which will soon invent ways to replace blubber with olestra and pine with plastic. Humanity can survive just fine in a planet-covering crypt of concrete and computers."
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Summary: Unsupported ( ) - Hard to believe he is serious
Review: This was one of the most ( ) books that I have everread. TheAuthor uses some of the laziest, weakest, and unsupportedarguments that I have ever read. I think there are around 10 footnotes. This book is worth reading only if you want to read things like: 1. Jets are better for the environement than trains. 2. Paper cups are more environmental than ceramic. 3. Humanity does not require nature. 4. Everything available in the Amazon rainforests can be recreated in a lab in New Jersey. 5. Rediculous comparisons between the author's ideas and those of Theodore Roosevelt (as if 100 years was a day). 6. Endless stabs, all unsupported, at Earth in the Balance. 7. Recycling is bad for the environment. 8. The only thing that matters is wealth and money. END
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Summary: Hard Green: A Political Study
Review: This book is about politics, not environmentalism. At that, it is a week assault on Gore's environmentalism, consisting of polemics rather than a thoughtful policy analysis. If you are interested in learning about current and important environmental trends, environmental science, or environmental policy analysis, then 'Hard Green' is NOT the book for you. If, however, you goal is to learn how conservatives go about trying to discredit Gore's environmental policy, then reading 'Hard Green' is a MUST! Ben Harkema, President of Millennialtrust.com, LLC.
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Summary: I think Algore needs to take a look at this.
Review: Al Gore wrote a book called "Earth in the Balance", where he talked about so many environmental issues. In Hard Green you'll find that what Al Gore left out of his book is what you need to know. Taking on the Environmentalists hard hitting arguments Huber dispels many of the commonly held "truths" and shows you that what you have heard and read isn't exactly the way it works. Huber is a very articulate and highly educated man with ideas that will take you into the 21st environmental millennium. Huber empowers the people with ideas that make common sense a reality and take all the mumble jumbo out of the liberal left and the power brokers in the environmental movement. Huber is convincing with his ideas about how our resources such as fuel, food, minerals and water are not running out but how they will last for a very long time. Huber presents a detailed look at how people are resourceful in finding alternatives for replacement of what they need. One of the most misunderstood ideas that the liberals' are constantly using is that the world is running out of natural resources, Huber on the other hand delves deep into this issue and shows that earth, like man, evolves and replenishes what it needs to sustain life and growth. Tackling other issues like global warming, pollution, saving national forests Huber completely blows holes in the liberal arguments. Also Huber tackles the issue of recycling and conserving and again makes the convincing argument, that what the left tells you isn't the complete story. Huber's book is the definitive conservative answer and for those truly concerned about the environment, this is the one book you really need to read.
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Summary: "Hard Green" informative and funny!
Review: I found "Hard Green" to be passionate, extremely objective and most importantly funny. Peter Huber is a funny guy. The soft green models, metaphors and mottos cited in "Hard Green" have been festering in our collective subconscience for more than quater of a century. I thought it was great the way he poked fun at some of his targets without lowering yourself to that cheap kind of mean-spirited politically motivated corruption of language that is truly poisoning us all today. Read this book and discover how we learned some of the lies we believed.
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Summary: Conservative Conservation-Huber's oxymoron
Review: Well, it's always good to hear the other side's opinions on a subject in order to get a more well-rounded perspective. At least, that's the idea. Huber, however, comes across as a specious jerk whose real agenda seems mainly to be "let's save the wilderness so's we can all keep shootin' animals there." Protect the environment from environmentalists? A terrific idea, Pete, and while we're at it, why don't we finish tearing up the Alaskan wilderness, too. It's too cold for hunting up there, anyway. If you want a balanced take on anything to do with environmentalism, forget this book. Huber's the Rush Limbaugh of sound environmental reasoning.
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Summary: The sky is not falling! The sky is not falling!
Review: Hard Green's primary fault is that it's glib and superficial and bounces all over the subject matter without penetrating deeply into what are undeniably important issues. To get the most out of Hard Green, you have to read what the Greens themselves are saying. Indeed, they may well be more effective critics of themselves than Huber is. A publication called 'Synthesis / Regeneration', a journal of Green political thought, spends its 48 pages without mentioning conservation or traditional environmental issues even once. Instead, laughable theories are created: We should eliminate all private business. No, we should let some private business operate, if they're small enough. No, we should only run worker-owned cooperatives. Every line item of production should be voted on by The People. No, they should vote on packages selected by politicians. These folks play lip service to having learned the lessons of the collapse of communism, but in the end, their prescription is little more than Soviet-style Communism with an environmental twist. Huber's point is simple and clear: The world doesn't work as Greens want it to. A modern plutocrat car, the Mercedes-Benz S420, is safer, more fuel-efficient, faster and pollutes far, far less than the VW Microbus still driven by many Greens. A modern power plant pollutes less than burning trash in your backyard, as the Greens want you to do. Want to use solar or wind power? You'll have to clear thousands of acres of pristine forest to make room for the plants. Better to save the forests and get power from underground stuff like oil and uranium. Finally, no, the world isn't running out of resources. Every time it threatens to, our capitalists go to work and find more. And on that unhappy day when they don't? They'll figure out something else to use. So, what lets us save the environment? Wealth. What kills it? Poverty. The more resources you have, the more willing you are to devote some of them to pollute less. If you're dirt poor, you'll do what it takes to survive. If you have a few bucks, you'll spend some of them to see rainbows. This stuff only makes sense, and I believe Huber is right despite his sometimes over-glib tone. Truth to tell, the Green publications make an even worse case for their policies then Huber. If you want to be able to heat your house, power your computers and run your car, well, you're not green at all.
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Summary: Could have been so much better.
Review: I was disappointed by this book. It was short on verifiable facts, repetitive on assertions, and in some places just mean spirited. I expect more from an attorney/engineer. If the arguements had been fully developed it could have been a much better piece of work. As it stands - I do not reccomend it.
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Summary: Provocative
Review: I think much of the heated and contentious debate that has been raised by this book has been from people who either aren't open to its message or who already understand why it's important. In my view this book does the important work of forcing us to view all environmental efforts on a standard ledger. Feel-good environmentalism may ease our consciences but it isn't necessarily green. I agree that Huber is excessively praising of the free market. But I don't think this takes away from the true value of his book.
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