Ten Influential Environmental
Books
By David Orton
Introduction
The following ten
environmental books, ranked in order of preference, are the books that have
been important
for me on my own environmental journey
to a radical ecological awareness. I have had a conflict in deciding which
books to leave out from this quite
personal list. I have leaned in my selections on the philosophical side,
because
it is our ideas which guide our actions
as environmental activists. Also, we do need a deeper ecological vision to
orient us, that goes beyond to the
shallow "resource" realism of industrial society. As societies we have to
stop
seeing Nature as a "resource", because
such a Nature will only have instrumental value for humans, not intrinsic
value. My main motivation for drawing
up a list of ten important environmental books, is to share with others the
books that have guided me in my environmental
activism, and to encourage others to become more deeply
involved.
Unfortunately, the
books chosen do in some limited ways reflect the English-speaking culture
that I have been
socialized into. Yet all cultures put
their own interests to the foreground. An ecological education can help break
restrictive, self-interested, human
cultural blinders. The ecological journey for me has seen a fundamental shift
from a human-centered to a ecocentric
consciousness, in how one relates to the Earth. Also, I have come to
understand that the present Earth-eating
industrial capitalist society, which everywhere commodifies Nature, has
to be dismantled, for human and nonhuman
survival. All of us from diverse cultures have to come to see that
we
share our identity with the natural
world - and with the animals and plants, as a necessary part of ourselves.
We
need to hear their screams inside our
heads, the real price of so-called development, as they are destroyed by
the industrial juggernaut. I believe
this needed transformation in consciousness to be in part a spiritual
transformation, away from human self-centeredness
and human chauvinism. The books listed below, have helped
on my own journey and understanding.
I hope they can also help others. (One book reluctantly left out, because
I only could choose ten books, is John
Livingston's The Rogue Primate, Key Porter Books.)
**************************
Ecology, community
and lifestyle: Outline Of An Ecosophy, by Arne Naess, translated and
edited by
David Rothenberg,
Cambridge University Press.
Arne Naess, is a
Norwegian and the most important ecological philosopher of the twentieth
century. He is now
in his 80s and has written over 400
publications. Prior to 1970 he was mainly known as an academic philosopher.
But since then he has become the primary
philosophical source for the deep ecology movement, which has so
inspired and informed radical environmentalism.
In 1972, in an article "The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range
Ecology Movement. A Summary",
Naess made the now famous distinction between "shallow" and "deep"
ecology. Shallow being defined as concerned
with the "health and affluence of people in the developed countries"
and the deep position stating that it
was industrial society itself that was responsible for the growing ecological
crisis.
Ecology, community and lifestyle,
is the best single introduction to the complicated and subtle thinking of
Naess.
There is lots of good advice for activists
in this book, because he has been in many environmental campaigns and he
is critical and reflective. This book
has been translated into a number of different languages. He has been influenced
by Gandhi, both in his thinking, in
his environmental activism, and in his lifestyle. "Ecosophy" in the subtitle
means
for Naess a personal code of values
guiding one's interaction with nature. For himself, he calls this "Ecosophy
T",
named after his own mountain hut in
Norway, where he has spent considerable time. Within the deep ecology
movement, an eight-point Deep Ecology Platform, written
by Arne Naess and the US philosopher George
Sessions, is now considered the basis
of unity for those who try to follow and apply this needed philosophy for
the 21st century.
**************************
Regarding Nature:
Industrialism and Deep Ecology, by Andrew McLaughlin, State University
of
New York Press.
A very important
book for showing the relationship, along with the contradictions, between
deep ecology and
the progressive political tradition.
McLaughlin, a socialist and US philosophy teacher, combines deep ecology,
bioregionalism and a social justice
perspective in a clarifying analysis of the roots and destructiveness of
industrial
society. He shows that industrial society
is the problem for radical ecologists and this society can have a capitalist
or socialist face. This book has provided
intellectual background support and understanding for the emergence of
the "left" theoretical tendency within
deep ecology known as left biocentrism. McLaughlin is also well known
within the deep ecology movement for
his writings on the eight-point Deep Ecology Platform, which he has called
the "heart of deep ecology".
**************************
The Greening
of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to Deep-Green Theory, by Richard Sylvan
and
David Bennett, The
White Horse Press and The University of Arizona Press.
Richard Sylvan,
the principal author, died in 1996. He was a well known Australian philosopher;
a forestry
activist who in the 70s with his then
wife co-authored a very important forestry book The Fight for the Forests:
The takeover of Australian forests
for pines, wood chips and intensive forestry; and the "bad boy" of the
deep ecology movement. (At one time
he used the name Richard Routley.) Sylvan was a sophisticated critic of
the fuzziness of many writings within
the deep ecology movement, although he considered himself part of this
movement. He first outlined these views
in 1985 in the publication A Critique of Deep Ecology, published by
The Australian National University.
The Greening of Ethics is a good and available introduction to his
stimulating ideas. In this book he
differentiates between "non ethics", "shallow", "intermediate" and "deep"
ethics.
The Land Ethic of the former
US forester Aldo Leopold would be an example of intermediate ethics. This
book
also points out to deep ecology supporters,
that there is no alternative political or economic vision yet in deep
ecology, and that there is no way forward
outlined towards a deep ecology society. These are obvious tasks that
need to be addressed, to create a mass
movement that is informed by deep ecology. Sylvan criticizes deep
ecology for promoting change as mainly
occurring through individual consciousness raising. He advances his
own
"Deep Green Theory" in deep
ecology. He was an important influence on the formation of the left biocentrism
tendency within deep ecology.
**************************
Avoiding Social
& Ecological Disaster: The Politics of World Transformation by Rudolf
Bahro,
Gateway Books.
This is the fifth
book in English (and last book) of the German green philosopher and activist
Rudolf Bahro who
died of cancer in 1997. It is a difficult
read but contains his provocative, and stimulating ideas. For Bahro,
"development" has ended, and the ecological
crisis will bring about the end of capitalism. Industrialized countries,
he said, need to reduce their impact
upon the Earth to one-tenth of what it is. Like the Norwegian deep ecology
philosopher Arne Naess, Bahro had an
ecocentric world view. Unlike Naess, Bahro was steeped in the culture
of the left. He is very influential,
particularly in a European context. Bahro came to critical awareness in the
former
German Democratic Republic. He joined
the communist party at age 17 and was later imprisoned for writing his
first major work The Alternative
In Eastern Europe, published in then West Germany. Bahro was deported
in
1979 after serving two years in jail.
He never became an anti-communist. He went on intellectually to help found
Die Grünen and was elected
in 1980 to the party's federal executive. Bahro explored and wrote with a
striking
honesty, about the contradictions
for a left-wing person of becoming a green. By 1985 Bahro resigned from the
German Green Party, saying that the
Greens did not want to exit the industrial system. His resignation statement
particularly repudiated the continuing
justification of animal experimentation. On Bahro's intellectual journey he
demolished bourgeois, left, and Green
orthodoxies. As his book shows, Bahro, like Gandhi, believed it necessary
to look inward for spiritual strength,
in order to find the resolve to break with the death course of industrial
society. He sought to establish communal
liberated zones within industrialized society. Bahro has become a
controversial figure, particularly
after 1984-5, as he embarked on a spiritual quest, which he became convinced,
was crucial for everyone to adopt.
He has been accused of "eco-fascism" but this I consider to be a slander.
However, spiritually he did seem to
lose his way. This is reflected in the esoteric/Christian passages in
Avoiding Social & Ecological
Disaster and in his involvement with the bankrupt Indian Bhagwan, Shree
Rajneesh. However, I remain an overall
admirer of his work and consider him an important influence on radical
ecology. In a letter to me, he said
that he was in agreement "with the essential points" of the philosophy of
left
biocentrism.
**************************
Eco-socialism
or eco-capitalism? A critical analysis of humanity's fundamental choices,
by
Saral Sarkar, Zed
Books.
Saral Sarkar was
born in West Bengal, India in 1936. He was involved in progressive politics,
and studied
and later taught German language and
literature in that country. In 1982 he moved to Germany where he still lives.
Eco-socialism or eco-capitalism?
is his latest book, which sums up thirty years of his thinking. It has been
published also in India. Sarkar has
been active in the Green movement in Germany. He was a political
contemporary of Rudolf Bahro, and similarly
associated with a "fundamentalist" green vision. Sarkar is the
author of the two-volume Green-Alternative
Politics in West Germany, published by the United Nations
University Press. My bias is that Sarkar
is a personal friend, whom I have known since 1990. His writings have
contributed to my own thinking. This
is an important book for those concerned with whether or not it is possible
to fuse the radical ecology and socialist
movements. The author believes it is possible, providing socialism is
prepared to redefine itself and learn
"the ecological lesson" from the radical ecology movement. His
"eco-socialism" is a planned non-industrial
society. So this book is very helpful for its ecological critique of all
forms of socialism, its critique of
green politics and the insightful examination of traditional cultures, with
a brutal
non politically correct honesty. A
scientific critique of the various assumptions behind the industrial growth
economy is present in the book. Also
to be found, is the argument for a contracting economy and a reduction
of the standard of living in the so-called
developed economies. Sarkar argues that those who support a
contracting economy on ecological grounds,
must advocate concrete policies for reducing social inequities, with
a sharing of the burden according to
financial capacity. He argues for population reduction. He proposes that
in
Third World countries like India, there
must be a guarantee of livelihood in old age, to have any successful
population reduction policy. Sarkar
notes that for the first time in history, "a social movement 'promises' a
lower
standard of living if it is successful."
I find my disagreement with this book, is that I do not believe that the
"theoretical synthesis" of radical
ecology and socialist politics, the main task set for himself by the author,
has
been achieved. Deep ecology, which
has such an influence on the radical ecology movement, is rather cursorily
dismissed in the book, as a form of
anthropocentrism. Yet there is a subdued biocentric perspective in this book.
In recent personal discussions
(resulting from a visit to Canada and talks on his new book), Sarkar
comes
across as someone sympathetic to deep
ecology. But this is not reflected in this excellent and courageous book,
with its political vision and economic
model.
**************************
Deep Ecology
For The 21st Century: Readings On The Philosophy And Practice Of The New
Environmentalism,
edited by George Sessions, Shambhala.
There are 39 essays
in this book of readings (13 by Arne Naess himself), divided into six sections
with valuable
introductions to each section, written
by the US philosopher George Sessions. The editor has written many articles,
and played a crucial role in introducing
and popularizing deep ecology in North America. The essays are by
representative thinkers within or having
influence on the deep ecology movement. I would recommend this book as
a good introduction to deep ecology
published writings. The weaknesses of the book reflect those of the deep
ecology movement. Generally, anthologies
of deep ecology writings reflect a bias in the material selected towards
the writings of university academics
and not movement activists, and show few applications of deep ecology
to
actual environmental problems.
Such anthologies also illustrate what could be called the "educational fallacy",
that is, the belief that ideas are
enough to bring about social change in our relationship to Nature. Overlooked
or
downplayed are the class and power relationships
in industrial capitalist society.
**************************
A Green History
Of The World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations,
by
Clive Ponting, St.
Martin's Press.
This is a magnificent
book to come across and then read. Environmentalists and greens need a sense
of green
history, including a non-romanticized
view of the history of indigenous societies, otherwise they can easily believe
that environmental destruction is somehow
associated only with the expansion of a Eurocentric society over the
rest of the world starting in the 15th
century. (Prior to this period Europe was an economic backwater, with
13th
century China being the world's leading
'industrialized' economy with sophisticated technology for the use of water
power, hemp, spinning machines, etc.)
Ponting gives the evidence in A Green History Of The World, to show
many examples of past civilizations
and empires, e.g. Greece, the Middle East, Rome and North Africa, when
humans have ruined their local environments.
This, through over-exploitation of the local natural bounty, not
controlling population, extensive deforestation,
etc. Deforestation was present in a number of pre-industrial
societies. Tiny Easter Island, first
visited by Europeans in 1752, is one example of a place where people were
unable to find a balance with their
environment, and placed impossible cultural demands on the land. With
European expansion based on looting,
forced labour and slavery and the eventual emergence of a global industrial
society, environmental destruction
now however becomes global. Yet paradoxically, as other books have pointed
out, it was in the 19th century in
the Western intellectual tradition, that an anti-vivisection movement, a
vegetarian
movement, a naturalist movement, and
an animal welfare movement also emerged. The twentieth century saw the
birth of the environmental movement
and animal rights movement in Western society. Ponting, although a
documenter of ecological destruction,
does not come out and condemn industrial society and speak of an
alternative. As he said in his book:
"De-industrialization may apply to some regions within a country but
not to modern society as a whole."
**************************
A Sand County
Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River by Aldo Leopold,
Oxford University
Press.
Aldo Leopold (1887-1948)
was a hunter, and a former forester and game manager for the US Forest Service.
His book of essays, A Sand County
Almanac was published after his death. He was also an eco-philosopher,
writing extensively on the meaning
and importance of wilderness and about his own changing ecological
consciousness, away from the human-centered
"resource management" perspective of his time. Today, some of
Leopold's basic ideas and metaphors,
e.g. "thinking like a mountain", "the Land Ethic", "green fire", and "round
river rendezvous", have been branded
into the consciousness of ecocentric activists who defend old growth
forests and wilderness. His environmental
ethics have become extremely influential. Most environmental activists
know of the Land Ethic, which speaks
of enlarging the boundaries of the human community, to include soils,
waters, plants and animals. For Leopold,
"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability,
and beauty of the biotic community,
it is wrong when it tends otherwise." From this perspective alone,
every industrial forestry clearcut
must be condemned.
**************************
Clearcut: The
Tragedy Of Industrial Forestry, edited by Bill Devall, Sierra Club Books/Earth
Island Press.
This is a "coffee
table" size book, which is not meant as something to flick through and soothe.
It is meant to arouse
anger and it succeeds perfectly in
this. The Dedication in this book in part says: "This book is in memory
of the
plantlife, birds, insects, animals,
and indigenous cultures that have been driven to extinction by the greed
and delusion of human arrogance."
Industrial forestry is probably THE environmental issue, which preoccupies
most activists in Canada and the United
States. Clearcut contains page after page of pictures of forest destruction
from many states in the US and from
every province in Canada. It is a book which makes anyone with some
sentiment for the environment very
angry at the vandalism that passes for forestry in North America. Bill Devall,
the
editor, like George Sessions, has been
at the heart of the deep ecology movement and this philosophy permeates
this book. As well as the descriptions
of industrial forestry - massive clearcuts, forest biocide spraying to eliminate
non commercially desirable trees, forest
roads everywhere, biologically sterile plantations of one or two species,
essentially without wildlife, replacing
multi-species and multi-aged forests, etc. - there are essays by forestry
activists and also by foresters who
have come over to the anti-industrial forestry side. Still, many activists
and
alternative foresters have illusions
that a fundamentally different, ecologically sensitive forestry can have
a place
within a market-based, continually
expanding industrial economy. This book nevertheless is the best overall
bird's
eye view of industrial forestry in
North America and of a critique informed by deep ecology.
**************************
The Ecological
Indian: Myth and History, by Shepard Krech III, W. W. Norton & Company.
In North America,
within the environmental movement, non-aboriginal environmentalists have
to come to terms
with a society overladen by a past
aboriginal history of exploitation, land dispossession, and racial discrimination;
and also have to come to terms with
a contemporary history of renewed aboriginal struggles over land claims and
claims to treaty "rights". Such claims
can have profound ecological consequences in a contemporary situation, e.g.
claims to hunt, trap and fish year-round,
without season; claims to "traditional" harvest rights in wildlife areas,
marine
protected areas, and parks, etc. Part
of coming to terms with this (today we are all impacted by industrial
culture
with its destructive technologies),
and working out a position which respects historical injustice and today's
demand for social justice for aboriginals
- but in a deep ecology context of justice for all marine and terrestrial
life
forms, is to look realistically at
the past ecological record of aboriginals in North America. This is a task
that the
book addresses. This is a scholarly
and well documented book by a university-based US anthropologist. The
Ecological Indian draws upon research
both from Canada and the US. It helps in putting aside widespread
romantic illusions about aboriginals,
current within the environmental movement. This book gives the evidence to
show that aboriginals did not always
harmoniously co-exist with Nature. There is no "Ecological Indian", in the
commonly understood sense of being
the first true environmentalists. Krech examines the Pleistocene major faunal
extinctions of some 11,000 years ago,
the role of fire, past aboriginal wildlife exploitation (buffalo, deer and
beaver)
and the fur trade, in coming to his
conclusions. Yet Krech is stuck in a perspective of looking at Nature only
from
human enlightened self-interest. He
does not acknowledge in this fine book that for those inspired by a deep
ecology awareness, wildlife, plant
life and wild nature have value in themselves, independent of their role
as
"resources" for human use.
December 20, 1999
**************************
This list
of books was originally prepared for The Reviewer, a progressive Indian
online review of books, now defunct,
which had invited nominations from environmentalists for "The ten most influential
environmental books of the century."
The books had to be ranked in order of preference. Later
the list was widely distributed on the internet, and published
in the newsletter Green Voices #12, January 2000 (publication of the
Kootenay-Boundary Greens, BC).
To obtain any of the Green
Web publications, write to us at:
Green Web, R.R. #3, Saltsprings, Nova Scotia, Canada, BOK 1PO
E-mail us at: greenweb@ca.inter.net
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Last updated: January
09, 2005