Ernest Callenbach (1929–2012)

I'm of two minds about this book. On the one hand, it's an interesting and insightful set of ideas about what an independent Cascadia might look like, and the values of the culture that would grow there. On the other hand, as a book it's more than a little pulpy and chauvinistic - a relic of its time for sure. Callenbach's vision of a utopian future also misses the mark pretty significantly on race, one of the places Ecotopia has diverged quite starkly from reality. Ultimately it's an interesting read about what some people might have hoped the future held for us, and a vision of what we might aspire to, wrapped in an imperfect and in some places quite flawed package.… (més)

10% Ecology, 90% Social Studies with Environmentalism: a Pocket Guide would've been an honest title earning a higher rating. However Ecology: a Pocket Guide was another mid 90s to mid 2000s popular attend to make ecology, a science, instead a synonym for environmentalism, and political ideology.

The great irony here is that this book preaches to the choir and, even though I'm a member of the choir, I picked this book to read about the natural world and the interactions within it. There's too little of that. Of what is there has an interesting, unique interpretation compared to the tired descriptions in textbooks. However, it's just too little of the book. I don't like people turning something pure into something with an agenda, and I'm not a fan of being preached to.

I've met people that refuse to read a science book because it's boring compared to the emotional and personal ethic validation of a political book. However, abusing the term "ecology" perpetuates and perhaps even initiated the idea that environmental protection is partisan beliefs instead of something universal. Besides not being seen as universal to the survival of society, it's also often seen as something to serve humans instead of a part of an intrinsically valuable entity in the universe. The anthropocentric mindset.

On some level I understand teaching sciences in terms of human values to retain people's attentions and, so to say, making the sale to people that don't inherently value nature, but you can do that honestly. Misusing "ecology" is unnecessary. There's environmental studies (the social side of environmental sciences), environmental stewardship, natural resources (though can be an objective term, "resources" is broadly regarded as referring to human resources), environmental sociology, environmental economics, environmental ethics, and ecological anthropology (how humans interact with the natural world) would have been better terms to use as a title.

I prefer "environmental stewardship" in this case since the author goes over his ethics and ideology--and writes them as if they are absolute and objective, not a style I'm fond of--and general, objective methods that we can be more responsible to the environment. It seems to fit under stewardship than anything else. I think it also would've been a better read and more bona fide to his purpose if he wrote in an essay style than an encyclopedia one. Essays are supposed to be a mix of opinion and supportive facts, like this book, but encyclopedias are supposed to be absolute fact or objective reporting of existing theories in the absence of proof--too academic for this book's content.

Overall, not my kind of read. It's too preachy and touches far too little on any actual natural science despite the title. Indeed, don't judge a book by its cover.… (més)