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This withering indictment of the environmental establishment by an award-winning science writer and environmentalist charges that it ignores basic principles of science, economics, and human nature.
While many environmentalists talk the language of science, Wallace Kaufman argues, they really adopt a view of nature and society that is deeply unscientific. Saving the world by recycling, reducing consumption, gardening organically, and living more simply is so much wishful thinking - and leaves our real environmental problems unsolved.
No Turning Back is the story of how the environmental movement displaced a conservation movement's century of success with a crisis strategy to change not only government policy but also American culture. Kaufman finds the movement's conception in the revolt of European and English romantics against both the rational mind of science and the Industrial Revolution.
He traces the sparks of that movement to America, where it was nourished by Henry David Thoreau, still the writer most widely quoted by environmentalists. While Thoreau declared that "in Wildness is the preservation of the world," this book demonstrates the exact opposite: in civilization is the preservation of wildness.
- Kaufman depicts an environmental movement crippled by its own fantasies and outlines a plan for building on the strengths of Western technology and culture to save the planet. To suggest that human beings can survive and thrive by rejecting precisely what makes them unique - namely, reason, planning, and inventiveness - is a recipe for disaster, Kaufman writes.
The world's commitment to hands-on management of nature is now irreversible. How well we do it will depend on whether people in power continue to try to turn away from the future and make ideas more important than people. Debunking well-known environmental experts, including Bill McKibben, Paul Erlich, and Lester Brown, as well as Vice President Albert Gore, No Turning Back is sure to be a hotly debated book.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
environmental history, property rights, Environmentalism, Environmental policy, Green movementPeople
Wallace Kaufman, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), Daniel Botkin, William Wordsworth, Al Gore, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)Places
United States, New England, Russia, New JerseyTimes
20th centuryShowing 5 featured editions. View all 5 editions?
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1
No Turning Back: Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking
April 2000, iUniverse
in English
0595000991 9780595000999
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2
No Turning Back: Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking
March 2000, Tandem Library
School & Library Binding
in English
061392035X 9780613920353
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zzzz
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3
No Turning Back: Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking
August 1995, Basic Books
Paperback
in English
0465051197 9780465051199
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WorldCat
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4
No turning back: dismantling the fantasies of environmental thinking
1994, Basic Books
in English
0465051189 9780465051182
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aaaa
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WorldCat
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5
No turning back: dismantling the fantasies of environmental thinking
Publisher unknown
0465051189 9780465051182
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p.[189]-202) and index.
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Work Description
Wallace Kaufman led three statewide environmental groups in North Carolina, ran an organic farm, and did his graduate work on nature and the English Romantic poets--i.e. he knows the environmental movement and its foundations. He also built his own house in his own forest and lived there for 30 years--the simple life. His experience leads him to important disagreements with many environmental activists.
In this book he traces the well springs of modern environmental thinking and how it diverged from the conservation movement of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Giving many examples, he makes the case that our science and technology and creative economy, not a turning back to a simpler life and time, are the answers to solving environmental problems.
Environmentalists who want to understand the roots of their movement and who are interested in creative solutions and a sympathetic critique, will find Kaufman's book an honest and provocative challenge.
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