Manes, Christopher. Green Rage: Radical Environmentalism and the Unmaking of Civilization. Boston: Little Brown, 1990. Not to be missed.
Man's Impact on the Global Environment,Assessments and Recommendations for Action, Report of the Study of Critical Environmental Problems (SCEP). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970. The text predicts carbon dioxide levels of 370 ppm in the year 2000 and a surface-temperature increase of .5 C as a result. The actual figures were 360 ppm and .3 Cfar more accurate than predictions made fifteen years later, using lots more computer power.
Marlar, Richard A., et al. "Biochemical evidence of cannibalism at a prehistoric Puebloan site in southwestern Colorado. Nature 407, 74078, 7 Sept. 2000.
Martin, Paul S. "Prehistoric Overkill: The Global Model." InQuaternary Extinctions: A Prehistoric Revolution. Paul S. Martin and Richard G. Klein, eds. Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1984, 354-403.
Mason, Betsy. "African Ice Under Wraps."Nature online publication, 24 November 2003.
Matthews, Robert A. J. "Facts versus factions: The use and abuse of subjectivity in scientific research." In Morris,Rethinking Risk, pp. 247-82. A physicist argues "the failure of the scientific community to take decisive action over the flaws in standard statistical methods, and the resulting waste of resources spent on futile attempts to replicate claims based on them, constitute a major scientific scandal." The book also contains an impressive list of major scientific developments held back by the subjective prejudice of scientists. So much for the reliability of the "consensus" of scientists.
Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: New American Library, 1972. It is a shame this book is out of print, because it was hugely influential in its day, and it set the tone ("the predicament of mankind") for much that followed. To read it now is to be astonished at how primitive were the techniques for assessing the state of the world, and how incautious the predictions of future trends. Many of the graphs have no axes, and are therefore just pictures of technical-looking curves. In retrospect, the text is notable not so much for its errors of prediction as for its consistent tone of urgent overstatement bordering on hysteria. The conclusion: "Concerted international measures and joint long-term planning will be necessary on a scale and scope without precedent. Such an effort calls for joint endeavor by all peoples, whatever their culture, economic system, or level of development.... This supreme effort is...founded on a basic change of values and goals at individual, national and world levels." And so forth.
Medvedev, Zhores A. The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Extremely difficult to read.
Michaels, Patrick J., and Robert C. Balling, Jr. The Satanic Gases: Clearing the Air about Global Warming. Washington, DC: Cato, 2000. These skeptical authors have a sense of humor and a clear style. Use of graphs is unusually good. The Cato Institute is a pro-free market organization with libertarian overtones.
Morris, Julian, ed. Rethinking Risk and the Precautionary Principle. Oxford, UK: Butterworth/Heinemann, 2000. A broad-ranging critique that discusses, for example, how precautionary thinking has harmed children's development. Nye, David E. Consuming Power, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998. America consumes more power per capita than any other country, and Nye is the most knowledgeable scholar about the history of American technology. He draws markedly different conclusions from those less informed. This text is scathing about determinist views of technology. It has clear implications for the validity of IPCC "scenarios."
Oleary, Rosemary, Robert F. Durant, Daniel J. Fiorino, and Paul S. Weiland. Managing for the Environment: Understanding the Legal, Organizational, and Policy Challenges. New York: Wiley and Sons, 1999. A much-needed compendium that sometimes covers too much in too little detail.
Ordover, Nancy. American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Fascinating in content, confusing in structure, difficult to read, but uncompromising. The author insists on the culpability of both the left and right in the eugenics movement, both in the past and in the present day.