Page 16 RAIN Jan./Feb. 1984 ACCESS: Global Resources "Life on Earth is Getting Better, Not Worse," by Julian L. Simon, and "The Cornucopian Fallacies: The Myth of Perpetual Growth," by Lindsey Grant, The Futurist, August 1983, $3.50 from: World Future Society 4916 St. Elmo Avenue Bethesda, MD 20814 Catastrophe or Cornucopia: The Environment, Politics and the Future, by Stephen Cotgrove, 1982,154 pp., $19.95 from: John Wiley & Sons 605 Third Avenue New York, NY 10158 "Cornucopians" and "Limits-to-Growth People" live in very different paradigms. The future is sunny for the Cornucopians: science, applied to apparent resource shortages, will, they believe, surely prove to be the secular equivalent of the biblical loaves and fishes, providing more of everything for everyone. By contrast, the Limits-to-Growth People are chronic worriers, always fretting about non- renewable resources and the disasters that may result from failure to heed ecological constraints. Most of us already have strong opinions about who's right and who's wrong in this debate (hint: the Cornucopians are wrong), but it behooves all of us to better understand the bases for the arguments on both sides. The Futurist articles by Julian Simon and Lindsey Grant provide a good starting point for such an understanding. Simon, who, together with the late Herman Kahn, is one of the best- known proponents of the Cornucopian position, describes his rosy perception of a world in which health is improving, income levels are rising, pollution is declining (at least in the United States), and there are no meaningful limits to natural resources. Grant, who was the State Department coordinator for The Global 2000 Report, presents an excellent critique of the assumptions and methodology of both Simon and Kahn. Perhaps as interesting as the Cornucopia vs. Limits-to-Growth debate itself is the question of how people come to subscribe to such radically different positions in the first place. In Catastrophe or Cornucopia, British sociologist Stephen Cotgrove examines the broader ideologies and world views that tend to characterize people in each camp. It's an interesting analysis that can go far toward lifting readers of both persuasions beyond simplistic stereotypes of capitalist "technotwits" and radical "nature freaks." Unfortunately, it is a book that is also a good example of that disturbing phenomenon, the vastly overpriced academic study. Look for it in your library. —JF The Survival of Civilization, by John Hamaker and Donald Weaver, 1982, 218 pp., $8.00 ppd. from: Hamaker-Weaver Publishers Box 1961 Burlingame, CA 94010 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently released a study on the effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) buildup planet-wide. Widely publicized, the study maintains that the much-debated greenhouse effect—the trapping of heat from the increasing presence of CO2— could soon cause polar ice to melt, sea levels to rise, and croplands to wither. EPA's culprit: the burning of fossil fuels. This warming effect is an accurate extrapolation, but only for a portion of the planet, claim The Survival of Civilization authors, Hamaker and Weaver. The rising of super-heated air in the equatorial zones pulls heavier cool air down from the poles over temperate zones. As moist air from the tropics is drawn over polar regions, extra COz-induced cloud cover protects glaciated areas from melting in the summer and provides excess moisture and particles for precipitation. The result is accelerated glaciation. Why is glaciation important to whole- earth health? It redeposits soil minerals that have been depleted over the centuries. Because plants cannot grow fast enough to keep pace with CO2 accumulation and denuding of forests, polar clouds increase and glaciers advance. When CO2 is sufficiently absorbed in the soil and ocean, glaciers retreat and plants flourish. According to the authors, the abnormally cool summers in Canada and the northern states over the past three years are, along with similar occurrences in Europe and Russia, early signs of the changes to come. As ecologists, they aren't content recommending that we only arrest fossil fuel combustion. Just as urgent is the need for widespread soil remineralization programs (amounting to glaciation without the ice) to quadruple plant growth. In his 1948 book The Health}/ Hunzas, ]. I. Rodale emphasized that U.S. agricultural programs should spread billions of tons of a variety of ground rock powders over our croplands to maintain the mineral diversity of healthy soil. But how do we remineralize without moving mountains? In 1959 and 1963, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released studies of cement kiln dust from cement manufacturers nationwide. They concluded that "the large amount of dust potentially available and distribution of cement plants throughout much of the humid regions, where the dust could be applied to the soil without shipping great distances, makes this by-product of special interest." Hamaker and Weaver urge readers of their book to communicate to their Congressional servants immediately the need for coordinated action. Glacial invasion or not, the need for healing the planet's skin cannot be ignored indefinitely. —KN
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