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The Population Bomb, The Limits to Growth,
The End of Nature. Once or twice a decade, a book comes
along that redefines the terms of the environmental debate.
Divided Planet is such a book.
Most people in America today see themselves
as environmentalists. They recycle their trash, drive a
bit less, and shop for energy-efficient products. They think
they're making a difference -- but they're wrong.
The real threats to our environment, according
to Tom Athanasiou, can't be halted or even slowed by the
feel-good environmentalism of the industrialized world.
Global warming, soil loss, overconsumption, ozone depletion,
overpopulation, and habitat and biodiversity losses are
a lurking catastrophe that will engulf the world all too
soon. And frightening though the prospect may be, only radical
social and economic changes can possibly forestall disaster.
Writing with fierce intelligence, Athanasiou
locates the roots of the crisis in the planetary divide
between rich and poor, developed and developing nations
-- and warns of the apocalyptic consequences if we continue
to pursue First World strategies of economic development.
The Amazon cannot be saved, for example, while only 2 percent
of the Brazilian population controls most of the agricultural
land. Greenhouse gases cloud the atmosphere and the weather
becomes ever more extreme and unstable, yet fossil fuel
use continues to rise, for the market sets oil prices so
low that there is no economic motivation to reduce consumption.
Neither the Third World nor the former Soviet Union can
afford modern production and pollution-control systems,
and now the American Congress is set on repealing our green
legislation. These and other tough socioeconomic issues
-- reforming the World Bank and world trade system and providing
education and equality for women, to name a few -- must
be added to our environmental agenda, Athanasiou argues...
before it's too late.
Tom Athanasiou has been active in environmental
and technology politics for more than two decades. He has
written for The Nation, the San Francisco Chronicle,
and many environmental publications. He runs an electronic-publishing
group in Menlo Park, California, and lives in San Francisco.
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