"No it won't!"
This sums up a big portion of what this book is about. One group of scientists from a university over here created a model and method for saving the world that another set of scientists disagreed with, sometimes to the point of throwing drinks in each others' faces.
This is a detailed history book first and foremost. There are entire chapters you won't feel bad about skipping through because, well, it doesn't matter what neighborhood one of the combatants grew up in. It will be explained that such nominal details speak to why Julian Simon would take Chicago economists as a kind of surrogate family, but again, it doesn't really matter when you're trying to learn how these population growth arguments carried out.
The "interesting facts" are randomly sprinkled throughout the book. You can gain insight on how Nixon got the reputation of being environmentally friendly. You can see how oil embargos fed flames of fear that played into national best sellers' conclusions concerning over-taxing resources. You can see how there's always a group that will come in as the "finally learned skeptics" who tear apart previous conclusions with modern era ideology more than any genuinely calculable methodology.
If anything, it's a cautionary tale about style verses substance. Valuable points get lost in doomsday rhetoric, even if the rhetoric is more true than false or more true than the other side. The details are not the kind you want to take many notes about or tell people. It's not a "bad" book, but I'm finding it hard to continue reading it.
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