ENVIRONMENT

THE ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC REVOLUTION: How Business Will Thrive and the Earth Survive in the Years to Come by Michael Silverstein. (St. Martin’s Press: $19.95; 216 pp.) This is a book about institutions; economies, corporations and governments. As a result, there are none of the strong, individual voices of the last three books. But rest assured that we can have everything we want. Preserving the environment and making a profit are not mutually exclusive goals, according to Silverstein. This may indeed be the only constructive way to talk about the deep rift between our nation’s economic values and our historically deep and close ties to the countryside. But the sheer amount of linguistic contortion this author goes through to drag these two participants into the ring makes it hard to read the book. He coins words such as enomics (environmental economics), he cites statistics from industry groups to prove that these industries are recycling (the American Plastics Council, for example), he assures us that smart companies won’t want to pollute anymore because the regulations against polluting make it so expensive. Why don’t I feel better? “Green spending,” “green marketing,” and “green packaging” are on the rise!