Sunday 24 August 2008

Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth” knocked the environmental movement backwards

The book "Act now" where the quote is from is not very good, but the quote below alone makes it worth reading. I'm waiting for the first journalist to attack the flood of "simple things to save the climate"-books. We need a journalists who dare to say the same thing about these books as Adam said about the last generation of "simple"-books

'Our environmental challenge requires more than awareness. While well-intentioned, the book “50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth” knocked the environmental movement backwards. Of course there are fifty simple things you can do to help the environment, but there are one hundred hard things, too. The book implies that the problem facing our world – loss of wilderness, unsafe tap water, ozone depletion – are the public’s fault, and if we just take shorter showers everything will be okay. That’s blaming the victim for the problem. We each have a role to play, but our challenge is to hold the big boys accountable. […] It’s important to take small steps in your own life, but not at the expense of the big ones that society must take as a whole.'

Act now: apologize later, by Adam Werbach, Page 9-10