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THE ROAD TO EXTREMA

In this captivating and original exploration of the state of the global ecosystem, journalist and novelist Reiss (Flamingo, 1989, Saltmaker, 1988) travels between New York and the Amazon rain forest, the better to underscore the critical interdependency between the two worlds. Brazil's highway BR-364, linking the towns of Porto Velho and Rio Branco, has been called the ``most controversial road in Latin America,'' praised in Brazil for enabling poor migrants to settle previously undeveloped forests but reviled in the States as ``a straw sucking up the Amazon.'' In traveling this road to determine the effects of ten years of development, Reiss makes it clear that the damage is real. Cattle ranches have transformed forests into infertile wasteland; poorly planned dams have put hundreds of acres of trees under water; Indian tribes have been decimated by disease; immigrant populations are overflowing Porto Velho's slums; and families of rubber-tappers are being crowded out of the forests by landowners. Reiss's interspersed reports on how Brazilian disasters affect life in the States literally brings these issues home: a New York teenager is cured of Hodgkin's disease by a drug distilled from an Amazonian plant even as US researchers work to keep thousands of other species of Amazonian flora from being obliterated; senior citizens are rescued from overheated apartments as North American summers grow hotter, possibly from the greenhouse effect; discussions proliferate concerning increased war and poverty in Third World countries as natural resources are exhausted. Reiss concludes that effective corrective actions by developed countries should include more ``debt-for-nature swaps''; conservation programs that take into account the needs of poor Brazilian settlers; pressure on the Brazilian government to enforce forest zoning and monitor bank-funded development; and increased individual activism. The rain forests will inevitably continue to shrink, Reiss points out. The question is, will we learn in time to preserve and cultivate nature, or face more plunder, extinction, and death? Lively, informative journalism.

Pub Date: March 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-671-68700-X

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1992

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GOOD ECONOMICS FOR HARD TIMES

Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.

“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.

It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.

Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0

Page Count: 432

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019

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THE NEW GEOGRAPHY OF JOBS

A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...

A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.

Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.

A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.

Pub Date: May 5, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012

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