APOCALYPSE NEVER.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald

We are frequently warned that humanity is beset by ecological catastrophes that could kill off civilization, perhaps even our species. Not so, insists environmental activist Michael Shellenberger in his new book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All.

Shellenberger, whose activism led Time to name him a "Hero of the Environment" in 2008, argues that while significant global environmental problems exist, they don't constitute inexorable existential threats.

Shellenberger's analysis relies on largely uncontroversial mainstream science. He points out that climate change has not made natural disasters more harmful to human life and wealth, and that fires have declined 25 percent around the world since 2003. (They have become more frequent and dangerous in some specific areas in the past decade, though not to historically unprecedented levels.)

He uses data to question frightening predictions about species extinctions. Warming will affect sea levels and food production, he grants, but...