Flipping through field notebooks…
One does not need to stray far when studying contentious ideas to understand that egos often create more problems than solutions, and the history of the environmental movement is no different. In this timely, interesting, and insightful work, Paul Sabin provides us with a history lesson through the lives of two bullish protagonists who were at extreme ideological odds with each other. The juxtaposition of the two men, Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon, and their disparate visions for the future of humanity and humanity's role on the planet is a symbol of the differing directions of American society and may help explain the currently entrenched divisions we have in American politics. Sabin's thesis is therefore a wonderful contribution to our understanding of not only how to approach (and not approach) environmental problems but also how to better discern the ways in which our American society has fundamentally changed over the past few decades. According to this book, these changes have occurred at least in part because of our culturally inherited ideas—driven by politicians as well as academics such as Ehrlich and Simon—that have pushed people along different ideological paths, and the journey that Sabin guides us through is one filled with surprising insight into American history. Sabin, an associate professor in the Department of History at Yale University, infuses his own experiences and insight throughout the book, which makes for comfortable, easy reading—I realized very quickly that that author was very open about his own learning process, and understanding how the environmental movement changed his family growing up and his own life's trajectory made it easier to apply the historical knowledge of The Bet and all of its ramifications to my own world. Sabin weaves this mix of environmental issues, politics, and real-world consequences in elegant fashion, making for an easy and entertaining read. Moreover, his thesis is quite convincing. Although the book centers on Ehrlich and Simon's much contested bet about how the price of certain metals would change over a decade—and the author certainly spends significant and warranted time on the bet per se—this book is about much more than a wager between two disagreeing scholars. It details the life histories of both men, providing considerable biographical information on each, allowing the reader to understand how they became who they are (or were), why their ideologies may have developed, and why each of them would have been so eager to make a wager to prove their own personal point of view. Sabin does this in an honest way, without taking sides, and provides a fair portrayal of each man's life, giving needed insight into their merits as well as their faults, the importance of their families (particularly Anne Ehrlich, Paul's wife), and the contributions that they made to their respective fields of study. Having lived and worked at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Ehrlich's summer stomping grounds, for the past 25 years, I found Sabin's portrayal of Paul and Anne Ehrlich very familiar, and much of the information has given me an even clearer impression of both of their careers. But the real story is in the bigger picture. The bet is a symbol, and it becomes a flash point for environmental problems and how we deal with them. But the bet was also a symptom of our society, the changes that occurred on the planet, and the American responses to those changes. It was a result of how Ehrlich and Simon viewed these changes and society's responses, using the lens of an environmental biologist and that of an economist, respectively, and developed their own ideology that they then often preached to their own choirs, as well as to the nation. Both men were deeply (although not equally) involved in this transition from a nation that was often blind to environmental issues to one in which environmental problems became a national focus, only to be followed by another shift in which anti-environment backlash has grown over time as free-market economics and corporate influence have flourished. And both men represented viewpoints that were shared by countless other citizens from a variety of walks of life. One of the greatest insights in The Bet is Sabin's take on environmental politics. Although I was fully aware of the variation among presidential administrations in the seriousness with which they addressed environmental issues, I learned much from Sabin's prose about the early years of the environmental movement, from Nixon to Reagan, and how Ehrlich, Simon, and the segments of society that each represented figured into the ebb and flow of environmental politics and the resulting variation in responses (or lack thereof) to environmental problems. This layer of insight is necessary for a full understanding of the changes that have occurred in our nation and the global environmental movement, per se, and make this work a must-read for anyone interested in the environment, politics, or how human behavior affects both of these fields. Another terrific lesson from The Bet is the parallels and disparities between how both science and economics are conducted by their respective academics and how findings are interpreted and subsequently championed or stifled. This provides a cautionary tale for both fields and for human inferences in general. Both are built on previous information, and both have suffered from misguided attempts at drawing conclusions—or even promoting policies—based more on ideology than on reality. Indeed, the limited degree to which some scientists have stood up to climate-change deniers in our current age may reflect the pain felt from previous overreaching mistakes. In other cases, reasonable attempts at understanding the world through these different lenses has led to outright mockery of one by the other, and Ehrlich and Simon were exemplars of this behavior. Scientists and economists have sometimes lacked the ability to effectively communicate with one another; however, such communication is particularly important between these fields today as we attempt to address the most important environmental problem of our time—one that has vast implications for the global economy. Sabin's timely book weaves these tangled strands in a way that allows one to see the web in its entirety and better understand the changes that need to be made in the way we approach science, economics, and society. In summary, I wish all historical works were this interesting to an environmental biologist. The book has an inspiring quality to it in terms of Sabin's academic rigor and wonderful prose but also in terms of the way in which he spins the topic, which made me, for one, think about how I approach my own work and the degree to which my teaching, research, and outreach efforts are affected by the way in which I present and discuss environmental issues with others. Such introspection is a valuable commodity in any work, but particularly when the stakes are so high.
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