Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health! [Hardcover]

This is basically a good book, but flawed in ways that will reduce its effectiveness.
Berlau argues that the modern environmental movement has harmed people. He is not
complaining that corporations are constrained in their greed. Rather, individual men,
women, and children are killed or harmed because of the actions of environmentalists.

Most of the rules he complains about were based on bad, even fraudulent science.
In the areas I'm familiar with, Berlau got the science mostly right. There are good notes
and references so you can check up on him, and on the people he relies on. I'm not going
to try to summarize the science as that would make this review too long.

A person can contract malaria several times during a lifetime. There are 300 to 500
million cases per year, and over 2 million deaths from malaria each year. Most of those
cases could be avoided by the use of DDT. There are no documented cases of anyone dying
from DDT or from a condition caused by DDT.

Asbestos is fireproof and reduces the flow of heat. Steel is not as strong when it is hot.
The World Trade Center towers were designed to withstand the impact of the largest
airliner of the day, a Boeing 707, and the resulting fire. The steel framework was to be
wrapped in asbestos. But then politics kept the asbestos out. With asbestos the towers
would have remained standing much longer, so more people could escape.

There is a mix of political influences in autos. Greens are not the only ones that apply
pressure for more expensive than necessary, less efficient than possible, less safe cars.

Trees are nice, and we have more of them than we had prior to the Civil War. Here in
Massachusetts the land is more forested than it was during the Revolutionary War.
Leaving forests untouched means really big fires when fires happen.
The deer population is about the same as in colonial days.

Environmentalists prevented the building of flood protection gates near New Orleans.
The proposed gates were based on those used in Netherlands, where they know a lot about
how to prevent flooding low lands.

Almost everyone agrees with the expressed desire of environmentalists. Clean air is better
than dirty air. Clean water is better than dirty water. A mountain is prettier than an
open pit mine. A Redwood tree is nicer than a clear cut forest. Bambi is nicer than a
slaughterhouse. But these are not the real choices. The real choices are matters of degree
and there are real costs associated with the alternatives. Is it worth 5 less mpg on every
car to get the air from extremely pure to ultra pure? Is it worth $1500 extra for every new
house to save 113 spotted owls? These are the kinds of questions that are avoided by the
environmentalists.

The extreme environmentalists seem to hate humanity. They preach about huge harms from
hypothetical situations and ignore real threats that have proven defenses. Berlau points
out much fakery in the movement. The most telling lines come from David Brower, long the
head of the Sierra Club, on page 210. "The Sierra Club made the Nature Conservatory look
reasonable. Then I founded Friends of the Earth to make the Sierra Club look reasonable.
Then I founded Earth Island Institute to make Friends of the Earth look reasonable. Earth
First! now makes us look reasonable. We're still waiting for someone to come along and make
Earth First! look reasonable."

The extremists are not going to be changed by this book. They seem to have a religious
faith that anything is justified to "save the planet." But this book might help most
people think about the trade-off and the costs of things that would be nice if they were free.

That is where the weaknesses appear. There are problems with facts and attitude problems.
First the factual flaws. None reduce the message of the book, but they provide ammunition for
those that will attack it. "If he's wrong on these things, why trust him on any claim?"
It was not a light plane that crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945. It was a B-25
medium bomber. Berlau seems to confuse minivans and SUVs, generally using the later term
for both. Native Americans used fire intentionally in forests, and burned prairies as a
hunting technique, but they did not create the great plains by burning down the forests.
I don't promise this is a complete list. There are also a bunch of editing flaws, the kind
that appear because word processing is so easy. An example is adding a second example to a
sentence and forgetting to change a verb to the plural form.

Other reviewers have pointed out the insulting title and the "sarcastic" cover illustration.
Politicians are rightly blamed for many foolish actions. The Democrats seem to have a majority
of the environmentally idiotic politicians, even though Nixon gave us the EPA and the DDT ban.
Berlau often labels the politicians as liberal. I think this makes many potential readers
less receptive to the good information in the book.

Overall, this is a good book on an important topic. I just wish it was a little better so it
would be a more persuasive book.

Eco-Freaks is a must read if you honestly want alternative perspectives on environmentalism. Berlau shook up my thoughts what it means to be an environmentalist. Personally I focus on minimizing consumption, eco-friendly choices, and promoting a clean environment. While I love trees and have just renewed my Arbor Day Foundation membership, I have more freedom to enjoy fresh air and warm sunshine in the back yard. Humankind has and is altering the environment of the world daily. Did my American Indian ancestors have their way with the environment as much as they could? I definitely believe so. Before reading Eco-Freaks I was perplexed when visiting my extended family in Napoli. They were extremely grateful to see the death of their friends and family stop with the spraying of DDT when the US troops invaded the Italian peninsula during WWII. Did this save my wife's family from dying of Typhus? I can't imagine having the arrogance to tell the 25% of Neapolitan's dieing of Typhus during WWII that there might be longer term health risks so we can't help them. My father spent 2 years in the South Pacific during WWII. I can't image not saving my family and friends and the local population from Malaria without at least a critical debate. Given that the Gates foundation has listed Malaria as one of the top three health hazards in the world, shouldn't we at least critically review our stance? I hope that we can move to a level where we can have debates without labeling and marginalizing each others positions.

Berlau's insightful and down-to-earth writing style has me see that even the "greenest" environmentalist and the "worst" industrialist are more aligned than the "public debate" would have us think. Perhaps the greatest take-away from Berlau's Eco-Freaks is to really look at how our public debates on environmentalism are polarized into a very young "right" and "wrong" positions. This has the effect of hampering or eliminating dialogue on the subject at hand.

Berlau didn't give me all of the answers, but I am definitely more critically looking at the assumptions that I make and inherit from others.

-Tom

Several reviews below are informative, correct but a bit long. Here's a quick overview. The Hoover Dam saves lives & prevents flooding. Environmentalists (Eco-Freaks) would like it blown up. There is no evidence DDT kills or even harms hardly anything. It can and has saved millions of lives. Eco-Freaks support it's ban. Asbestos is a fire prevention wonder and it's few negatives can easily be controlled. Eco-Freaks are against asbestos use. Trees put way more hydrocarbons in the atmosphere than cars. Eco-Freaks love trees and hate cars. The Netherlands has a wonder life-saving system of water & flood control. Eco-Freaks pursue lawsuits rather than allow a system like that to save lives in New Orleans. The book points out many other examples. Environmentalists are amazing in their consistent ability to be wrong on everything. Being stubbornly wrong in the face of mountains of contrary evidence propels them to honorary status with the liberal left. The brainlock that will not budge in the face of logic is the hallmark of the liberal left. The author presents the scientific backup that Eco-Freaks have chosen to ignore for decades. Here's hoping a few finally see the logic.