THE STATE OF THE EARTH ATLAS <i> edited by Joni Seager (Touchstone: $13.95, illustrated)</i>

This atlas of environmental problems is more interesting for the way the authors slant the information toward the “Green” point of view than for the data it offers. Despite the blurb on the cover about being up to date, some of the information is no longer valid: Love Canal is described as “uninhabitable,” although homes there were recently approved for sale. Some of the authors’ assertions would be difficult to defend in a serious debate: “The deterioration of the global environment has less to do with population growth than with industrial economies and priorities.”

Editor Joni Seager and the various contributors often seem so eager to score ideological points that they blithely present untenable propaganda as fact. The destruction of endangered species is described as a “male activity” because most hunters are men and “it is men who purchase the animals and their by-products.” Which gender wears more fur coats, exotic leather, ivory jewelry and feathers?

The rhetorical overkill in “The State of the Earth Atlas” may ultimately harm the Green cause by fueling the anti-conservationist contention that environmental activists exaggerate the gravity of the ecological crisis.

THE WALNUT KING & OTHER STORIES By John Mort (Woods Colt Press: $8)