George W. Bush was correct when he said that his critics "misunderestimate" him. A Texas oilman with a spotty environmental record as Texas governor, few expected him to be an "environmental president," as his father once claimed to be. Nobody, however, expected George W. to fundamentally alter the basic equation governing environmental protection in America.

What we are witnessing now, assert Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope and coauthor Paul Rauber, is something larger even than the gutting of the Clean Air Act, abandonment of endangered species, selling out public lands to loggers and oilmen, and allowing polluting industries to write the regulations. The Bush administration seeks nothing less than to overturn the consensus on natural-resource policy that developed from the time of Theodore Roosevelt through the end of the Clinton administration. In place of government as the steward and protector of our nation's natural heritage, Bush and his political allies want to restore the nineteenth-century tradition of government as coconspirator in the economic exploitation of that heritage. Their sights are firmly set on dismantling a century of environmental progress.

Brilliantly argued and full of damning evidence from the Bush administration's environmental record, Strategic Ignorance sets forth what the American public can and must do to bring a halt to Bush's radical experiment.

"Americans ought to be madder than they are about the Bush administration's environmental deceit: that's the not-surprising core message of this detailed book, coauthored by Pope, executive director of the Sierra magazine editor Rauber. That citizens aren't appalled and outraged in greater measure, they write, is thanks to what they cast as the slick rhetoric, obfuscated facts, deliberate disinformation and Orwellian way with words of Bush and his pro-growth cohorts (a Clean Air Act that adds to pollution, a Healthy Forest Initiative that encourages both more logging and more forest fires). In impassioned broad strokes, Pope and Rauber report that Bush and his environment-unfriendly cabinet (Interior, Energy, Agriculture and EPA, in particular but not exclusively) have stripped 235 million wilderness acres of protection from logging and mining interests; funneled billions of dollars in subsidies to giant agribusinesses; rewritten scientific reports to excise unwelcome findings on global warming; defunded Superfund cleanup of hundreds of toxic waste dumps; given near carte blanche to polluting industries to self-regulate; and even lied about the quality of Manhattan's air in the days after September 11. But the real energy of the book comes from its accumulation of small facts to paint the picture — of obsessive secrecy, crony capitalism and (or so the authors claim) the administration's conscious, unabashed commitment to the economic exploitation of the air America breathes, the water it drinks and the earth it walks on. (May)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, and Rauber, a senior editor of Sierra magazine, explore the Bush administration's environmental record to show how the administration is turning the clock back a full century by overturning the national consensus on natural-resource policy that's been under development since Theodore Roosevelt's day. "Greed alone cannot explain the depth and breadth of the current assault on the environment," they write. They lay out in turn what the public can do to defend against the administration's ideologically driven "robber-baron philosophy."
Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

A startling, brilliantly argued indictment of the current administration's jihad against the environmental protections Americans count on, and the natural heritage we wish to pass on to posterity.

"The Bush Administration's assault on the environment has been breathtaking in its swiftness, scope, and severity. It is the most concerted effort in our history to roll back the nation's environmental laws and regulations. In "Strategic Ignorance, "Carl Pope and Paul Rauber clearly dissect the Administration's agenda and methods. More than a wake-up call, this book is a call to arms for defenders of America's priceless natural heritage."--Senator Barbara Boxer

"The policies of the Bush administration pose a real danger to the quality of the environment in the United States and the world. In "Strategic Ignorance "Carl Pope lays out the shrewd but destructive logic through which these policies are beginning to shred the environmental safety net. Pope brings to the job the insight of a man who has been at the forefront of the environmental movement for nearly 30 years."--George Soros

Published in cloth in 2004, Strategic Ignorance revealed to countless readers the true scope of the Bush administration's assault on the environment. Midway through the second Bush term, with a Supreme Court far less likely to rein in the wrecking crew--as the authors describe those working to dismantle environmental protections--this book will be even more important and useful.

Strategic Ignorance sets forth not only the shocking Bush record but the stories and strategies behind it. Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope and coauthor Paul Rauber brief us on the key administration figures, as well as legislators and lobbyists on the reactionary right, who strive to gut landmark laws; facilitate payback to polluters; distort, suppress, or ignore science; and invent soothing flimflam like Clear Skies. The authors were prescient in predicting Bush's repeal of the Roadless Rule, the censoring of evidence on global warming, and the stonewalling on mercury emissions. They also foresaw the backlash now building: Congress rebelling against the EPA's sewage blending ploy, local opposition to coal-bed methane mining in the West, and resurgent environmental support at the polls.

Strategic Ignorance remains the indispensable guide to the Bush team's motives and tactics--and to how we can best oppose them to safeguard America's citizens, landscapes, and resources.

'Strategic Ignorance' sets forth what the American public can and must do to bring a halt to Bush's radical experiment.