November 19, 1999

'The Trade-Off Myth: Fact and Fiction About Jobs and the Environment'

By NINA C. AYOUB

Do Americans really have to choose between jobs and the environment? Has overregulation of industry led to mass layoffs and company flight to environmentally lax countries? That's the popular wisdom, says Eban Goodstein in The Trade-Off Myth: Fact and Fiction About Jobs and the Environment (Island Press). He also says it's wrong.

In the economy as a whole, there has been no such tradeoff. Job losses resulting from environmental protection are minute next to those from garden-variety