Earth Rising: American Environmentalism In The 21St Century

by Philip Shabecoff

"The mission of environmentalism is to mobilize society at all levels to confront the danger and disorder into which human activity has propelled us and guide us to a safer, saner way of living on the planet.... Environmentalism has never been about catastrophe. It is about alternatives, about changing course, about transforming the future." --Philip Shabecoff, from Earth Rising Philip Shabecoff, America's preeminent environmental journalist, has spent more than two decades thinking and writing about the environment and related subjects, as a reporter for The New York Times , as publisher of Greenwire , and as the author of two books, including the critically acclaimed A Fierce Green Fire . In Earth Rising , he draws on that experience to offer a pointed and thought-provoking critique of the current state and future prospects of the American environmental movement.Based on extensive interviews with a wide range of individuals both within and outside of the movement, Shabecoff elucidates the issues and problems confronting today's environmentalists and analyzes the movement's strengths and weaknesses. Viewing environmental threats as symptoms of flaws in our society and its systems, he considers the urgent need for a broader, more inclusive environmentalism, and examines the role environmentalists can -- and must -- play reforming the education system taming the global economy and making it an instrument of human needs working for political reform, including reducing the influence of corporate spending on the electoral process directing the course of the scientific enterprise as well as making use of its results helping develop a new moral center for people throughout the nation and the world Throughout, Shabecoff emphasizes the need for national organizations to link together with grassroots groups and to become more responsive to local concerns, and argues that the environmental movement has not yet adequately prepared itself to meet current and coming challenges. He makes a compelling case that another wave of environmentalism is needed -- more powerful, diverse and sophisticated, visionary and flexible. Earth Rising offers a detailed road map that can guide environmentalists toward that new and reenergized place in society.

258 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 2000

Reviews

[Jack Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent critique of the environmental movement showing strengths, weaknesses, and detailing a vision of where the movement needs to go to be effective in the future. There are good ideas about where we need to be to avoid catastrophe such as "shift taxes away from wages and earnings to pollution and resource depletion with out increasing total tax burden", but it is not clear how we can achieve this policy shift.

Shabecoff says, "The American environmental movement seems to have no broad, shared vision of where it wants to take us... needs a set of commonly agreed worldwide environmental objectives." If this criticism is not valid then the fault is that the vision has not been well articulated.

"Concern about and love for place can make environmentalism a unifying force." Since most Americans are tired of partizan politics, it would seem that environmentalists should make more of an effort to use a well defined vision for the future a way to bridge the political divide.

This book is worth reading if only for the outline of where the movement needs to go to be influential in the decades ahead. Shabecoff reminds us of the need to link the environmental agenda with people's problems. He says "the environmental crisis is about the right to life." Several times he stresses the importance of collaboration between national and local activists.