Vice President Al Gore's Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit was one of the most widely read books written by an active politician in many years. More than just a book about science or policy, Earth in the Balance presented environmental issues as a moral and metaphysical challenge to humankind.

In true point-counterpoint fashion comes Environmental Gore: A Constructive Response to Earth in the Balance. While complimenting Gore for beginning a constructive dialogue and acknowledging Gore's "Impressive mastery" of environmental issues, the authors collected here offer both a competing vision of the nature of environmental issues and different strategies for solving our genuine environmental ills.

These authors reflect Gore's grandiloquent view that nothing less than a transformation of human nature and society is required to safeguard the environment. Instead, what is required is sound science and a clearer understanding of how institutional and economic incentives can be changed to carry out the legitimate agenda of environmental protection.

Environmental Gore includes essays from eminent scientists, policy analysts, and social thinkers and is offered in, the spirit of finding common ground between Vice President Gore's vision and the insights of the school of thought known as "new resource economics."