/lit/ - Literature

>>16762189
>Is that really what is claimed in the book, OP?
Not at all. The Guardian is a fucking joke lmao.

The book is a long string of basic truisms like "There's more energy in a Ton of Coal than there is in a Ton of Wood" or "Industrial farming can produce more calories on a sqm of land than organic farming can" which he uses to discredit some prevailing (or newly emerging) false assumptions about the relationship between economics and environmentalism, further showing how these assumptions and narratives inform poor policies with unitended outcomes, especailly in Western countries.
There's virtually no controversial content in the book whatsoever, as others have pointed out, aside from some hypothetical calcualtions on Shellenberger's part, such as advising India to burn more fossils, more quickly, thus increasing wealth, thus lowering birthrates, thus lowering the (future) energy demand of a (compartively smaller) Indian population by 2060 or something. which might be correct, I'm not sure, but I'd like to see more data on that than: dude trust me, I have polar bears on my book cover haha!