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ericwelch's review
4.0
I like Easterbrook, who often writes for The Atlantic. In this book he says environmentalists need to step back and celebrate their successes. We have made triumphant progress in the last hundred years: water and air are both much cleaner, and we should be proud of democracy's ability to accomplish the improvements. The doomsday nature of the environmental movement, i.e., if we don't do this or that we will all die tomorrow, is ultimately harmful to the cause, he suggests, for when doom doesn't happen people lose faith in the movement's judgement. He also challenges a fundamental environmental concept: that humans do more damage to nature than nature does, a claim that is difficult to take seriously when natural calamities are viewed across geological time.
I am also struck by the number of dystopian novels that have appeared in young adult and adult literature. Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, etc. Why no Utopian? Or perhaps I am missing something. The media certainly bombard us with visions of doom. I wonder what the long-term effect of catastophism might be. Not to be Pollyanish about problems, but if you see only inevitable doom, what incentive might there be to try to fix things as did one of my heroes Norman Borlaug who actually did something about a problem rather than just run around crying the end is coming.
I am also struck by the number of dystopian novels that have appeared in young adult and adult literature. Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, etc. Why no Utopian? Or perhaps I am missing something. The media certainly bombard us with visions of doom. I wonder what the long-term effect of catastophism might be. Not to be Pollyanish about problems, but if you see only inevitable doom, what incentive might there be to try to fix things as did one of my heroes Norman Borlaug who actually did something about a problem rather than just run around crying the end is coming.
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