A favorite liberal ploy across the spectrum is to pretend that only liberals care about various problems. Those who are against their usually soft-headed and invariably costly problem prescriptions are then labeled as for the problem. Sometimes there was not really even a problem to begin with. Remember the Alar apple scare propigated by 60 Minutes?

Environmental Overkill destroys radical environmental arguments with common sense. A brilliant scientist and former governor of Washington, the late Dixy Lee Ray exposed the radical enviros for what they are: a bitter ice cream sundae of money-grubbing scam artists with a good bit of totalitarian earth-mother nuts sprinkled on top.

At the same time she gives examples of how property rights and the free-market save wildlife and wilderness. It makes all the more sense if you know about the hellish stewardship of land and property provided by governmental agencies (Russia, China, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Land Management). I couldn't put this book down.

I read Dr. Ray's books in high school and college to get information for debating. I was surprised to find out that they are among the most heavily footnoted books on the subject of environmentalism. Dr. Ray's use of science and statistical data is so overwhelming that the critics of this book have to resort to political mudslinging to discredit it. If you can find a copy of this or "Trashing the Planet," give it a read. These books are extremely insightful and full of real data that would be hard to compile from other sources.

If you have the courage to test your own intellectual honesty, you'll find great value in Dr. Ray's "Environmental Overkill". As a working environmental scientist, I have over 15 years of practical experience with the regulatory infrastructure, the nature of the problems it attempts to control, and the hopelessly irrelevant (at best) or absolutely destructive (at worst) effects of political environmentalism. If one is willing to concede that the environmentalists' fundamental assertion is true - that technology & economic development cause the environmental problems we face today - the logical conclusion would be that a more conscientious, more responsible, more enlightened, more humane approach to technological and economic development marks the path toward the solutions to those problems.

Dr. Ray exposes the hard truth that the agenda and goals of political environmentalism are antithetical to conscientiousness, responsibility, enlightenment, or humanity. Their agenda and goals are manifest of the most primitive recidivism since the Medieval Inquisition. Dr. Ray's documentation is robust to the point of incontestibility. The easily accessible corroborative proof in her references clearly shows that political environmentalism provides civilizational benefits equivalent to those of witchcraft, only with less emphasis on rationality.[....]That's precisely why Dr. Ray's book is so powerfully irrefutable,[....]a significant percentage of Dr. Ray's references come from a source whose presumed credibility he does not care to challenge: the political environmentalists themselves. The reason why Dr. Ray's book is so devastatingly effective in revealing the fraud of political environmentalism is that she lets its spokespersons destroy their own credibility. She simply quotes their fully documented fraudulent assertions, presents the controverting evidence, and lets the reader reach the overwhelmingly obvious conclusions. Don't take my word for it; read the book and draw your own conclusions.

That is, unless your beliefs about the environment are emotion-based, and you'd prefer not to see that truth.

Give me a break. A surefire way to confuse the public with bad science and pander to industry and business.

I first came across this book in 1994 when I was a liberal leaning college student concerned with the environment. I am now a conservative college graduate concerned with the environment, and this book had much to do with my transformation. Dixy Lee Ray is a breath of fresh air speaking on a subject many of us are ill-informed on.

If you are concerned with the environment, you will find much in this book that interests you (as long as you can handle truth). Miss Ray debunks much of the dogma the enviro-nazis shove down the publics throat. She takes on the issues of global warming, ozone depletion, nuclear medicine, acid rain and others. Using scientific methods (something the leftist leaning environmental zealots ignore because they fear the outcome of true scientific discovery) she intelligently and unemotionally discusses how water is naturally acidic; the benefits of x-rays and other advances in radiation therapy; the benefits of pesticides in our ability to grow more food using less labor and land.

Throughout her book Ray uses the statistics and predictions of the environmental movement's leaders against them to show how out of touch with reality and normal society they are. A Stanford University Biologist, Paul Ehrlich is quoted as predicting global famine in 1985 and a shrinking of the US population from 250 million to 22.5 million by 1999. Here is another quote, "Paul Watson, founder of Greenpeace: 'I got the impression that instead of going out to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the kids who shoot birds.'"

The list goes on and on. The best part of the book is the final chapter, in which Ray presents a sound and logical formula for having both a clean environment and a technologically advanced society. This book should be read by all high school seniors so they can understand the truth about the environment rather than the dogma they are spoon feed in public schools and the liberal media.

I have read Trashing the Planet by Dr. Dixie Lee Ray several times. This book should be required reading for introductory classes on the environment in both high school and college - however, that will never happen. The leftist environmental movement does not want anyone to read this book - it is concise, well researched, thoroughly footnoted, and, I feel, gives an accurate report on the status of humans and their impact on the environment. I recently sent copies of this book to President George W. Bush and Bill O'Reilly of Fox News to help them understand what they are up against.

The review of this book states that the authors claim that "nuclear power is a safe and cheap source of energy; that acid rain is a vastly exaggerated problem; that chemical pesticides are not as dangerous as they have been made out to be; and that worry over the ozone hole is just an environmental scare tactic". To even attempt to claim these assertions as fact in a book of 206 pages (that don't source refernces for information!) is completely rediculous.

This book is a good starting point for those who want to research environmental issues and not get distracted by the hype. It provides many resources and provides good leads. It is also an easy read for those who don't have a scientific back ground.

Read this book if you want to look at environmental issues from common sense standpoints rather than from standpoints of people preaching gloom and doom!

What can you say about someone with the audacity to write a book about the environment when she clearly doesn't understand the difference between a natural water soluble chlorine bond (from volcanoes) and a man-made non water soluble chlorine bond (CFC). The former gets washed out of the atmosphere by rain, the latter makes it up to the ozone layer to disrupt the ozone molecule. Go back to high school chem, poseur.

The author makes some valid points but then extrapolates beyond reasonable conclusions. I ended up laughing out loud when it became obvious that she labels anyone who has reached conclusions contrary to hers a "radical extremist". Oh well.... more toilet paper.

Well researched and footnoted work that puts the lie to many common misperceptions about environmental theory.

A must read for anyone who cares about a balanced view of current environmental doctrine. BTW - forest fires cost the lives of more trees 200 years ago than man does today!