Our Stolen Future, Vice President Al Gore writes in the book's Foreward, discusses "compelling and urgent questions that must be answered." He calls it the sequel to the first enviromental benchmark, Silent Spring. He's wrong.

Our Stolen Future marks the end of an era of public susceptibility to ill-founded hysteria and crisis entrepreneurship. Unlike Al Gore, serious and intellectually honest environmentalists demand factual and logically consistent foundations for reform. Hype and posturing are passé in the environmental policy arena.

The book's authors are Theo Colburn, John Peterson Myers, and Dianne Dumanoski, two zoologists and a former reporter, respectively. This "scientific detective story" is provocatively subtitled "Are We Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, And Survival?" It charges synthetic chemicals (found in PVC pipes, Tupperware, and Tide) with disrupting hormones. They allege hormonal disruptors are responsible for all manner of ecological, psychological, and social ills, ranging from illiteracy to "lesbian" seagulls. Their solution? Ban synthetic chemicals.

The book's timing is immaculate. It comes as the National Academy of Sciences convenes to discuss hormone disruptors. It arrives on bookshelves just in time for April 22, Earth Day. Our Stolen Future has a sexy title, a fetus on the cover, and a dramatic detective story inside. It is PR masterpiece.

Yet it's flopping. Reputable responders trash the book. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Washington Times have criticized the book for all manner of flaws, from hysteria mongering to junk science and from faulty logic to poor writing. It's a sign we're making progess. Here's why.

Our Stolen Future will not become the next Silent Spring. That's good news for those of us who rank environmental quality among our highest priorities. We learn more from failure than success, and this failure offers important lessons for environmental reformers.

People in the environmental movement are far more sophisticated today than in 1962. They recognize that greens attract both "crisis entrepreneurs" and genuine advocates for the public interest. These crisis hustlers generate new support by touting an emergency and then providing avenues down which people can parade their good intentions and express their sincerity by sending money. Conservative, quiet groups such as the Isaak Walton League and American Forestry Association lose to those that emphasize drama, apocalypse, and urgency at the expense of intellectual integrity.

But hysterical environmentalism ultimately backfires. Greenpeace International's mission against chlorine is an excellent example. Their anti-chlorine campaign led to Peru reducing the chlorine it added to its water supply. The result? A cholera epidemic swept through insufficiently chlorinated water supplies, taking far more lives than the chlorine ban could possibly have saved.

Colburn and friends deride the cancer scare of the early 1970s for turning cancer into "the ultimate measure of our fears." They see our preoccupation with high cancer rates as "more myth than reality." Scientists and regulators in the "War on Cancer" wasted precious time and resources. Colburn recognizes the perils of overstating cancer threats. Ironically, she tells us that, compared to cancer, hormone disruptors pose a far greater danger. Disruptors may destroy humankind.

But, after a few scares, people become jaded and cynical. Short-term opportunism thwarts constructive outcomes.

Such opportunism may work in the short-run, but it antagonizes scientists and policy analysts. For example, Our Stolen Future greatly exaggerates the scientific consensus regarding declining sperm counts. The book's misleading science invites criticism and undermines its alleged purpose. It's immediate supporters are likely to feel as foolish by the autumn of the year 2000 as those who predicted global cooling should today.

Also, environmentalists can learn that benefits normally imply costs. Only when they recognize both, and acknowledge inescapable trade-offs, can they recommend constructive and effective policies. This is not a cost-free world.

But Our Stolen Future considers only the negative effects of synthetic chemicals. It offers no appropriate responses. If plastics, pesticides, and paints merely sabotaged our biochemistry, Colburn's recommended ban might make sense. But synthetic chemicals are integral to modern civilization precisely because of their benefits.

Good public policy must incorporate the risks, benefits, and harms of each issue. Lorenz Rhomberg, Ph.D. of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis writes, "a crash program of [hormone-disruptor] control and cleanup will divert precious resources from other pressing environmental problems." Colburn ignores these trade-offs.

Sincere, sophisticated and sensible environmentalists shun chicanery and irresponsible reforms. They see these proposals are more dangerous than the synthetic chemicals Colburn pillories.

Insisting that chemicals be presumed guilty of hormone disruption until proven innocent by chemical manufacturers is terribly foolish. Even undergraduates should know one can't prove the negative. Anyone can always claim we simply haven't looked hard enough. By requiring chemical manufacturers to do the impossible, she dooms the beneficiaries a modern chemicals to the 1800s. Failing to acknowledge the huge benefits of modern chemistry is naive or disingenuous.

Savvy Americans expect misguided policy proposals from even gifted scientists. We understand that for PR firms image trumps truth. We expect and understand when crisis entrepreneurs with Greenpeace incite panics to build budgets. But why do smart scientists recommend pathologically unwise policies?

When scientists leave the lab and enter the policy arena, their body temperatures and IQ scores often seem to converge. A future scientific detective story may explain this tragic phenomenon. But Our Stolen Future already has the answer: hormone disruptors.

To read more about Our Stolen Future, check out these articles:

• Al Gore's Newest Horror Story -- in the The American Enterprise, July/August 1996.
• Flying Blind or Running Scared? -- in Liberty Magazine, July 1996.