Amazon.com (ISBN 0452280923, Paperback)

Here's the bottom line according to Bill McKibben: the earth will not be able to sustain its ever increasing population indefinitely. But the population problem is not just a phenomenon of developing nations--the United States is a major environmental threat, gobbling up a huge piece of the resources pie as our numbers grow larger every year. To avoid worldwide catastrophe, McKibben believes that the United States must reduce its birthrate.

Maybe One is more about the concept of having only one child per family, than a sanctimonious sermon on the perils producing more than that lone baby will have on the world. Understandably the implications of overpopulation for the planet's resources isn't something the average American cries into his Cheerios about every morning, but Maybe One argues that we must start thinking about family size and stop thinking of population as an "abstract issue" that has no bearing on our lives. McKibben produces compelling if not controversial arguments for curbing the U.S. population explosion, a population which he believes could grow by at least 50 percent by the year 2050 to possibly 400 million people. That's a lot of mouths to feed, fuel to burn, and waste to dispose! McKibben's arguments are a mixture of the highly personal (he speaks in great detail of his decision to have a vasectomy) to the highly global (McKibben cites scary statistics about the greenhouse effect, species extinction, soil erosion, and food shortages). He is particularly passionate about "only children" and that it really is okay to have just one child, arguing that only children are often more intelligent and confident than their multiple-sibling friends.

Like in The End of Nature an earlier McKibben book concerned with man's catastrophic contribution to the greenhouse effect, McKibben urges us in Maybe One to really think about our relationship with the earth. He writes, "No decision any of us makes will have more effect on the world (and on our lives) than whether to bear another child." Prophetic words, but words many parents will find difficult by which to abide. --Naomi Gesinger