The Bet
Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth's Future
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The Bet
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Narrated by:
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Anthony Haden Salerno
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By:
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Paul Sabin
About this listen
In 1980, the iconoclastic economist Julian Simon challenged celebrity biologist Paul Ehrlich to a bet. Their wager on the future prices of five metals captured the public’s imagination as a test of coming prosperity or doom. Ehrlich, author of the landmark book The Population Bomb, predicted that rising populations would cause overconsumption, resource scarcity, and famine—with apocalyptic consequences for humanity. Simon optimistically countered that human welfare would flourish thanks to flexible markets, technological change, and our collective ingenuity.
Simon and Ehrlich’s debate reflected a deepening national conflict over the future of the planet. The Bet weaves the two men’s lives and ideas together with the era’s partisan political clashes over the environment and the role of government. In a lively narrative leading from the dawning environmentalism of the 1960s through the pivotal presidential contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and on into the 1990s, Paul Sabin shows how the fight between Ehrlich and Simon—between environmental fears and free-market confidence—helped create the gulf separating environmentalists and their critics today. Drawing insights from both sides, Sabin argues for using social values, rather than economic or biological absolutes, to guide society’s crucial choices relating to climate change, the planet’s health, and our own.
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 442
Regarded as one of the brightest young scientists of his generation, Lewis Dartnell proposes that the key to preserving civilization in an apocalyptic scenario is to provide a quickstart guide, adapted to cataclysmic circumstances. The Knowledge describes many of the modern technologies we employ, but first it explains the fundamentals upon which they are built. The Knowledge is a brilliantly original guide to the fundamentals of science and how it built our modern world as well as a thought experiment about the very idea of scientific knowledge itself.
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3 out of 5 stars
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We might be screwed, but... science!
- By Ryan on 11-28-15
By: Lewis Dartnell
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Tyranny, Inc.
- How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do About It
- By: Sohrab Ahmari
- Narrated by: Sohrab Ahmari
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 26
Over the past two generations, U.S. leaders deregulated big business on the faith that it would yield a better economy and a freer society. But the opposite happened. Americans lost stable, well-paying jobs, Wall Street dominated industry to the detriment of the middle class and local communities, and corporations began to subject us to total surveillance, even dictating what we are, and aren’t, allowed to think. The corporate titans and mega-donors who aligned themselves with this vision knew exactly what they were getting: perfect conditions for what Sohrab Ahmari calls “private tyranny”.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Doesn't address the whole picture
- By Penelope M on 09-18-23
By: Sohrab Ahmari
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Franchise
- The Golden Arches in Black America
- By: Marcia Chatelain
- Narrated by: Machelle Williams
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
Often blamed for the rising rates of obesity and diabetes among black Americans, fast food restaurants like McDonald's have long symbolized capitalism's villainous effects on our nation's most vulnerable communities. But how did fast food restaurants so thoroughly saturate black neighborhoods in the first place? In Franchise, acclaimed historian Marcia Chatelain uncovers a surprising history of cooperation among fast food companies, black capitalists, and civil rights leaders, who believed they found an economic answer to the problem of racial inequality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Window into Black Capitalism
- By Keith on 01-13-20
By: Marcia Chatelain
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American Colonies: The Settling of North America
- Penguin History of the United States, Book 1
- By: Alan Taylor
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 493
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 428
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 426
In the first volume in the Penguin History of the United States series, edited by Eric Foner, Alan Taylor challenges the traditional story of colonial history by examining the many cultures that helped make America, from the native inhabitants from millennia past through the decades of Western colonization and conquest and across the entire continent, all the way to the Pacific coast.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent ..
- By aintbuyinit on 09-03-18
By: Alan Taylor
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The Nickel Boys (Winner 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
- A Novel
- By: Colson Whitehead
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Colson Whitehead
- Length: 6 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,363
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,255
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 7,225
When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood’s only salvation is his friendship with fellow “delinquent” Turner, which deepens despite Turner’s conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Who spoke for the black boys?
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
By: Colson Whitehead
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Breakfast of Champions
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: John Malkovich
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,371
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,936
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,927
Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Kurt Was Right to Grade This a C
- By Dubi on 01-10-16
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution: 1763-1789
- By: Robert Middlekauff
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 26 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,321
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,115
The first book to appear in the illustrious Oxford History of the United States, this critically-acclaimed volume - a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize - offers an unsurpassed history of the Revolutionary War and the birth of the American republic.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Strong History Rich With Behind The Scenes Details
- By John on 10-06-11
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The Hour Between Dog and Wolf
- Risk Taking, Gut Feelings, and the Biology of Boom and Bust
- By: John Coates
- Narrated by: Richard Powers
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 511
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 430
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 429
A successful Wall Street trader turned Cambridge neuroscientist reveals the biology of boom and bust and how risk taking transforms our body chemistry, driving us to extremes of euphoria and risky behavior or stress and depression. The laws of financial boom and bust, it turns out, have more than a little to do with male hormones. In a series of groundbreaking experiments, Dr. John Coates identified a feedback loop between testosterone and success that dramatically lowers the fear of risk.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing!
- By Gary C on 03-12-15
By: John Coates
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Factfulness
- Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think
- By: Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Ola Rosling
- Narrated by: Richard Harries
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 6,588
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,674
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 5,643
Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of carrying only opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends - what percentage of the world's population live in poverty; why the world's population is increasing; how many girls finish school - we systematically get the answers wrong. In Factfulness, professor of international health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two longtime collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Great Read not for Listening
- By carlos gomez on 06-01-18
By: Hans Rosling, and others
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Manhunt
- The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer
- By: James L. Swanson
- Narrated by: Richard Thomas
- Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,508
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 786
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 795
The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history, the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry and detectives on a wild 12-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating!
- By F. Elizabeth Hauser on 12-14-08
By: James L. Swanson
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1177 B.C. (Revised and Updated)
- The Year Civilization Collapsed
- By: Eric H. Cline
- Narrated by: Eric H. Cline
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 681
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 591
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 590
This audiobook narrated by acclaimed archaeologist and best-selling author Eric Cline offers a breathtaking account of how the collapse of an ancient civilized world ushered in the first Dark Ages.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Look past the one-star reviews: this is an enlightening and engaging read.
- By Alonzo Nightjar on 03-07-22
By: Eric H. Cline
What listeners say about The Bet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Leslie deGraffenried
- 10-19-15
Why can't we even discuss Global Overpopulaion???
What did you love best about The Bet?
Outstanding book that helped me better understand how we got to the point in this country where we cannot even talk about population control, and how Global Climate Change could be questioned so long by the extreme Right in America.
Read it.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Robert
- 05-20-18
Important history of environmentalism
This book is well worth the 7 hours, and should be required reading for anyone entering the sustainability field.
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