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New Book: DIVIDED PLANET: THE ECOLOGY OF RICH AND POOR



Sanetters -- FYI

>
>From: Tom Athanasiou <toma@igc.apc.org>
>Subject: New Book: DIVIDED PLANET: THE ECOLOGY OF RICH AND POOR
>
>DIVIDED PLANET: THE ECOLOGY OF RICH AND POOR, Tom Athanasiou
>
>        (New York: Little Brown, $24.95, April 1996)
>
>
>Most people in America today see themselves  as  environmen-
>talists.   They  recycle  their trash, drive a bit less, and
>shop for energy efficient products.  They think they're mak-
>ing a big difference, but they're wrong.
>
>The real threats to our environment,  according  to  DIVIDED
>PLANET: THE ECOLOGY OF RICH AND POOR  --  can't be halted or
>even appreciably slowed by the feel-good environmentalism of
>the  industrialized world.  Global warming, soil loss, over-
>consumption, ozone depletion,  overpopulation,  and  habitat
>and  biodiversity  losses  are  a simmering catastrophe that
>will engulf the world all too soon.  And though it may be  a
>terrifying  and  inconvenient  prospect, only radical social
>and economic changes can possibly forestall disaster.
>
>"History,"  says  Athanasiou,  "will  judge  the  greens  by
>whether  they  stand with the world's poor."  It is a simple
>claim, yet as he demonstrates with both power and  elegance,
>its implications promise to redefine the environmental move-
>ment.   DIVIDED  PLANET  reveals,  with  rare  clarity,  the
>economic  factors  at play in the ongoing destruction of the
>planet.  In this election year, in  which  worldwide  issues
>like  trade  agreements  and the future of the post Cold War
>world can no longer be ignored, and yet both mainstream par-
>ties seek to do just that, such an approach is as compelling
>as it is overdue.
>
>DIVIDED PLANET takes up where other environmental and polit-
>ical books have stopped short.
>
>***
>
>     "DIVIDED PLANET asks the hard questions and  challenges
>     the  easy  answers.   With original style and analysis,
>     Athanasiou calls on environmentalists to  question  the
>     social  and  economic priorities of the New World Order
>     with it's ever-widening  gap  between  rich  and  poor,
>     North  and  South.  From "free trade" to the World Bank
>     to the cowboy capitalism of  the  former  Soviet  bloc,
>     Athanasiou exposes how unequal power relations underlie
>     ecological crisis.  This is an honest book which offers
>     no false hopes -- it is an urgent call for action."
>
>         -- Betsy Hartmann, Committee on Women, Population
>            and the Environment, author of REPRODUCTIVE
>            RIGHTS AND WRONGS
>
>
>     Divided Planet is like a dream version of the Clean Air
>     Act.   It  clears  away  the fuzzy-minded haze that has
>     enveloped environmentalism, and allows us an unobscured
>     view  of  the  social  and  economic  conditions--past,
>     present, and future--of the ecological crises.
>
>         -- Andrew Ross, Director, Graduate Program in
>            American Studies, New York University.  Author
>            of STRANGE WEATHER: CULTURE, SCIENCE, AND
>            TECHNOLOGY IN THE AGE OF LIMITS
>
>
>     "DIVIDED PLANET  is  a  challenging  and  sophisticated
>     analysis  of  the environmental movement and the global
>     issues it  addresses.   It  takes  us  far  beyond  the
>     fashionable sort of 'feel good' commentary on the state
>     of the planet that swamped Earth  Day's  25th  anniver-
>     sary."
>
>         -- Barbara Dudley, Executive Director, GREENPEACE
>            USA
>
>
>
>
>     "Athanasiou says 'History  will  judge  the  greens  by
>     whether  they  stand  with  the world's poor,' and then
>     shows us that we can't have sustainability without jus-
>     tice.   DIVIDED  PLANET  is  an  articulate, researched
>     letter from the barricades."
>
>         -- Carl Anthony, Executive Director, Urban Habitat
>            Program, Earth Island Institute
>
>
>     In one of the most important books to be  written  this
>     decade,  Tom  Athanasiou carefully explodes some of the
>     environmental movement's most cherished myths.  Want to
>     imagine  a  new  and  better green politics?  This is a
>     good place to start.
>
>         -- Mike Roselle, co-founder of Earth First!,
>            grassroots forest campaigner.
>
>***
>
>Tom Athanasiou has been active in environmental and technol-
>ogy  politics  for over two decades.  He has written for THE
>NATION, TECHNOLOGY  REVIEW,  WORLDWATCH  MAGAZINE,  THE  SAN
>FRANCISCO  CHRONICLE,  and scores of other publications.  As
>his day job he is a member of the  technical  staff  of  Sun
>Microsystems.  He lives in San Francisco, California.
>
>
>

*****************************************
Elizabeth Ann R. Bird, Ph.D.
Organization and Development Director
Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education

c/o Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
1450 Linden Drive, Room 146
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI  53706
608-265-6483
FAX 608-265-3020
eabird@facstaff.wisc.edu