Trying to stay current in this field isn't easy. First of all, you are constantly hounded by traditional dogmas that don't give a whit about research about "what works". Second, you have people whose first layer of identity is not addictions counseling writing from their limited perspective. Third, counseling texts often devote too much space to pharmacology and stuff which belongs in another course (and there are a trillion books on drug types and effects). Myers and Salt have written a real insiders book on treatment and counseling. It cuts to the heart of the counseling relationship, its crucial issues and problems, and the nitty gritty of screening, assessment, intake, on top of the clinical picture. Everything you need to know, in short. Wish I'd had it in my coursework.....

Sandy Kaplan

I've been morose for years about my inability to locate an up to date and comprehensive addictions counseling text. Most of them seem to have been written twenty years ago, or accept traditional "faith" models uncritically, ignore research, and/or have no coverage of crucial topics such as ethics. So it was a pleasure to see that Myers and Salt have come out with a top notch text, one that can be used at community or four year colleges. FINALLY, coverage of case management, ethics and confidentiality, VERY up to date MICA section - sophisticated coverage of personality disorders and AOD. Stages of change, REBT, Patient Placement Criteria, you name it, its there and its the latest. I'm familiar with these folks from the addiction studies educator network, which explains the ability to soak up the good stuff. I hope this text will help some of the "dinosaur" training programs out in the "boonies" to modernize and help our students become employable in the health care industry as it is today.

I bought this book in 1992 and found it truly oustanding in terms of depicting the planet environmental realities in an informative yet user friendly way. Packed with accurate statistics, colourful maps, and valuable insights and opinions from highly regarded authors in the field of biological and environmental sciences. 10 years after -we are now in 2002- I am surprised there have not been further and updated editions to this book. It really makes me wonder! These are the kinds of books that humanity needs to become increasingly aware at a global scale of environmental and social threats and opportunities associated to life in our planet.

This book has easy to understand diagrams that explain the ways the Earth's resources are distributed. Most importantly, it shows how we will be in serious trouble in the future if we do not change the lifestyles of all consumers.

In their book, Perverse Subsidies, Kent and Myers adequately demonstrate how global tax revenues can at times adversely affect the economy and the environment. The book is an expanded version of a 1998 report on the topic of perverse subsidies, focusing in particular on the OECD nations. Given the magnitude of these pervasive, deleterious subsidies, the authors were genuinely perplexed to find that the subject received scant attention from specialists in economics, public policy and the environment. As such, the book's subject matter would serve as an excellent springboard for hundreds if not thousands of graduate level research projects in the fields of economics, public policy, urban planning and development.

On the organizational front, the authors divided the book into three uneven parts, with the second of the book comprising the majority of the text. Part one of the book consists of two chapters that for the most part are readable and understandable. The first chapter covers basic concepts associated with subsidies in general such as: what subsidies are, the various types of subsidies given, the advantages and disadvantages of subsidies, social equity concerns, scale and externality issues associated with subsidies, and finally an extended discussion of how the authors derived their rough estimate for the size and extent of subsidies globally. The authors astutely note the difficulty of tracking down information regarding subsidies in general, and openly admit that their estimate for global subsidies may not accurately reflect the true value, given the hidden nature of subsidies and the active roles of governments to contain detailed information about payments and transfers. The second chapter tells the reader what constitutes a perverse subsidy (which the authors define as having deleterious and distorting effects on both the economy and the environment), delves heavily into economic and environmental values and costs associated with perverse subsidies, and tersely explains the role of (negative) externalities, focusing almost exclusive on the role perverse subsidies play in exacerbating global warming.

Part two contains individual chapters devoted to the agricultural, energy, transportation, water, fisheries and forestry sectors of the global economy and each chapter outlines the type and magnitude of the subsidies given to each sector, and offers specific policy recommendations for policy intervention, change, and/or overhaul. In each chapter, some countries are emphasized more than others, and this I believe reflects the availability of reliable data more than the political and economic importance, however great or small, of the countries emphasized. Part two also contains a final chapter that discusses the combined effects of perverse subsidies across all sectors presented, as well as their political, economic, and social implications. The last part of the book consists of one chapter, and

For the curious layperson, chapters one, two and nine of the book contain the most useful information, albeit of a general nature. Specialists with an interest in the various sectors emphasized in the book may find one or more of the chapters in Part Two of the book to be of some utility. In addition, researchers in the field may find the book's extensive notes section at the end of the text immensely helpful.

I found the book to be somewhat lacking in three key areas. First, the authors devoted much of their attention to explaining the flaws and holes in their research methodology, data and conclusions. Judicious readers will expect a considerable degree of uncertain in the numbers, data and results, given the magnitude of the challenge before the authors. Because of the breadth of the topic, rigorous statistical analysis may have been difficult to perform, and any attempts to perform such analyses, given the lack of hard data on the topic, may not have been of sufficient utility. However, I felt that too much space was devoted to justifying their numbers in every chapter, and such detailed justification could have been sufficiently presented in the first chapter. Second, graphs and charts would have done much to make the text more readable, and key points presented within the text-rich format would have been better understood in graphical or tabular form. Pie charts, bar graphs and other descriptive, graphical methods would have the reading much more brisk and enjoyable. Third, some key concepts, such as the subsidy, were explained in great detail with skill and precision, but other concepts and issues, such as externalities, costs, values and political dimensions of subsidies, were not very well delineated. Yet, in spite of these moderate criticisms, the authors have managed to write a good introduction to the Hydra-headed, shadowy and amorphous topic of subsidies in the global economy.

Frankly speaking, expositions on dry economic subjects such as subsidies tend to be more effective at eliciting yawns and putting people to sleep than sleeping pills. Nonetheless, not only did the authors convincingly argue that the problem of perverse subsidies is a gargantuan one indeed, they also made their case using an active writing style that engaged the reader, as opposed to making him or her yawn. One can not expect one small volume to do adequate justice to a topic of such magnitude, and for these reasons, the authors should be applauded for bringing some aspects of this gargantuan topic to the public.

Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent have written a comprehensive and engaging book about what turns out to be one of the biggest impediments to environmental quality and sustainablity - perverse subsidies. The book does a splendid job of documenting and quantifying perverse subsidies in six main sectors globally. One thing it lacks, however, is a really concise definition of what perverse subsidies are. Here is what is meant: A subsidy is a payment by a government to an individual or firm. In theory, the intent of this payment should be to decrease the divergence between private and social costs/benefits - to internalize externalities. A perverse subsidy is therefore a payment by a government to an individual or firm which, instead, increases the divergence between private and social costs/benefits. This can include both direct and indirect perverse subsidies. Direct subsidies are direct government payments to agriculture, fossil fuel and nuclear energy, road construction, water, fisheries, and forestry (the six major sectors documented in Myers' book). Some part of these subsidies are, of course, not perverse. They serve the intended purpose of reducing the divergence between private and social costs/benefits. But a large proportion of current direct subsidies are perverse. Myers and Kent estimate that globally 60% of conventional subsidies are perverse. This amounts to $860 Billion annually. Indirect subsidies are the failure of government to internalize externalities (especially environmental externalities) - leaving an unaddressed divergence between private and social costs/benefits. All of these indirect subsidies are (by definition) perverse and Myers and Kent estimate their total at $1,090 Billion annually. The total direct and indirect perverse subsidies worldwide are therefore estimated to be almost $2 trillion annually. As Myers and Kent point out, this is almost three times global military spending, larger than the annual sales of the twenty largest corporations, and four times the annual incomes of the 1.3 billion poorest people on earth. In other words, perverse subsidies are a huge problem, but an inherently "solvable" one whose solution would yield a "double dividend." Eliminating perverse subsidies would first help to reduce the divergence between private and social costs/benefits, thus making the economy function more efficiently. Second, it would free up funds to help solve other pressing problems. Critics will, of course, ague that these estimates are far too uncertain and "mushy" to have any meaning. Myers and Kent acknowledge the huge difficulties, but point out that "As long as the issue of perverse subsidies remains untackled, there tends to be an implicit presumption that their total must effectively be zero: there is the asymmetry of evaluation at distortional work. Of course, this is not what is intended. But as long as a problem is not accorded adequate attention, it is implicitly viewed as if it is not a problem at all." (pp. 21). Myers and Kent "resist the temptation to say we simply cannot appraise perverse subsidies in quantified fashion at all." (pp. 21) Instead they take on the challenge and ask the reader to accept the well documented qualifications that must always accompany any difficult analysis such as this. They also point out that their estimates are almost certainly conservative - further analysis and better data would reveal even larger numbers. Why do perverse subsidies persist? The answer is obvious, given the way our political systems work. One example is enough to demonstrate the magnitude and recalcitrance of the problem. Between 1993 and mid 1996, the American oil and gas industry gave $10.3 Million to political campaigns and received $4 Billion in tax breaks. This represents a benefit/cost ratio of about 400 to 1. Few investments in our economy are anywhere near as lucrative as this! Given these kinds of returns, it is little wonder that perverse subsidies exist and that they will be very difficult to eliminate. But they can be eliminated if they are exposed to the light of day and the substantial public benefits of their removal are brought into the political debate. Campaign finance reform is finally beginning to be seriously considered in the US and removal of perverse subsidies could be the next in line.

Yes, many of the photographs are spectacular. But the beautifully reproduced pictures aside, HOTSPOTS is an excellent example of how not to produce a tome designed to further the cause of conservation and ecological awareness. The bigger the book of this type (and HOTSPOTS is a very big book indeed), the more important variation in layout becomes, so that the eye will not become bored. In HOTSPOTS, full-page photographs alternate relentlessly with double-page spreads of interminably dry text better suited to an article in Nature or Scientific American than a coffee-table book intended for the general public. Even the Bulletin of the OTS (Organization for Tropical Studies) is livelier. Herein, endless lists and quoted statistics are interrupted only by the occasional attempt to actually interest the general reader in what is being said. The most accessible prose in the book is the foreword by Harrison Ford, and the publishers don't even have enough sense to put his name on the cover, where it might help to sell a few copies. Do I detect thereby a whiff of scientific snobbery? Attempting to plow through the unbearably monotonous text that only succeeds in rendering fascinating and vitally important information dull as dishwater, one has the impression of a group of scientists dedicated not to furthering the cause of conservation so much as effusively stating their own priorities. Only a few of the included maps are rendered with an eye (pun intended) toward enlightening the reader. In many, color separations are insufficiently boldly conceived and rendered, with the result that their interpretation becomes muddled. The book contains no explicatory drawings, diagrams, or other art work. These would not only serve to make the points lost in the text understandable, but would make the book far more pleasing to look at. Some of the most interesting photographs are set in the margins of the plodding text...and reproduced there so minutely as to render them virtually unviewable. Except for a few pages at the end of each section, there is no middle ground...photos are either full or double-page spread, or absurdly (for a book this size) tiny. More photographs, of varying size, should have been used in place of the monumentally dull text. The entire project cries out for the hand of a good designer. People will buy HOTSPOTS for the photographs or not at all because the text is, for the general public, virtually unreadable. What a shame and a disappointment. As an example of what might have been, I recommend THE LAST RAINFORESTS (Oxford; ed. Collins), MANU (Francis Patthey; MacQuarrie) and one of the most informative and best laid out of this type of volume, JUNGLES (Crown; Ayensu). Next time, they should let Harrison Ford write the whole book.

Hotspots is rich presentation which provides an extensive survey of the most biologically diverse and endangered ecoregions on the planet, compiling the studies and perceptions of a range of scientists and conservationists to provide a strategy for coping with conservation challenges to each of these regions. 25 areas receive focus from the Andes to Africa and the Philippines. Extensive illustrations compliments in-depth, detailed articles. Very highly recommended: a special presentation.

This is a great book. My Aunt Avecita Chicchon helped in makeing this book, so I learned a bit more about it. This book has helped me understand a little bit more about the rain forests of the world, and appreciate the work my aunt and uncle are doing for South America.