Synopses & Reviews
Environmental issues, once the benign hobby of the few, have become everybody's urgent concern--progressing from the peaceful vibes of the first Earth Day to the political tumult of the "green possibility." As we surpass the end of the twentieth century and as these issues become more pressing, John Young's
tour de force is an especially welcome and timely assessment of the history of the environmental movement--and a call to arms for a new and effective attack on the problems.
Young maintains that only a powerful synthesis of political, economic, and moral ideologies--a unification he terms postenvironmentalism--will move world societies into a relation to the environment that maintains the best democratic values. He describes many of the movements and strategies that have appeared over the last three decades: realos, reds, greens, left and right ecologists, eco-feminists, humanists, and pragmatists. Now even the most radical environmentalists must recognize the reality of questions about equity and poverty, technology and energy, aid and trade between wealthy and impoverished countries, and the validity of the ways people consider them. As the process of trial and error this book describes continues, Young offers--in a thoughtful and undogmatic manner--an alternative perspective that is essential reading for all who care about our world.
Review
Sustaining the earth is an important book. John Young expertly traces the many strains of the environmentalist movement and demonstrates how their best elements might be woven together to create a new and enduring political consensus. His book is a message of hope and common sense. E. O. Wilson
Review
I am impressed with the sweep of the discussion and the general sensibility of its prescriptions. The author is an optimist and I believe there is a basis for optimism. He avoids the doomsday orientation of so many authors and thus provides a balance to those positions. Young is aware of the interrelationship of environmental issues and other issues, particularly that of inequality in the distribution of the world's goods, both within societies and between them, and seeks to find formulas that will resolve these conflicts. Harvard University
Review
"A tour de force encapsulation of the many kinds of issues, moral dilemmas, political strategies, philosophical and religious reflections that have appeared over the course of the past thirty years to create the environmental movement Dean E. Mann - University of California, Santa Barbara
Synopsis
Environmental issues, once the benign hobby of the few, have become everybody's urgent concern. Young maintains that only a powerful synthesis of political, economic, and moral ideologies--a unification he terms postenvironmentalism--will move world societies into a relation to the environment that maintains the best democratic values. Young offers an alternative perspective that is essential reading for all who care about our world.
About the Author
John Young is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Environmental Studies at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Why We Need A Degraded Environment
2. The Real Garden of Eden
3. The Parable of the Talents
4. Science to the Rescue
5. Small is Beautiful, but Can We Afford It?
6. The Ingredients of Post Environmentalism
7. Finding Common Ground
8. The Politics of a Sustainable Society
Bibliography and References
Index