Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique of Radical Environmentalism.

With the waning of the twentieth century has come a broad rejection of that century's "gods that failed." Among the utopian visions recently challenged by the new spirit of pragmatism are the various species of radical environmentalism. Notable among these is a new book by Martin W. Lewis, a geographer, who trains his sights on those activists who strive for an almost absolute environmental "purity" and who frequently take as models "primal societies" living lightly on the land.

The crux of Lewis's critique is his contention that the specific policy recommendations and lifestyle choices of these extreme groups would actually worsen environmental quality rather than improve it. For instance, promoting the world's urban population to move back to the land en masse would lead to the disappearance of open space and wild habitats, in the first instance, and would actually increase per capita pollution by eliminating energy-related economies of scale and by replacing industrial fuels with wood. Such a move to re-ruralize the world might also work against population control, which has often been an outcome of urbanization. "Primal" societies, he informs us (on the basis of first-hand field research in the northern Philippines), often precipitate deforestation of broad areas, and where they do live lightly, it is only because their population densities are so low. Lewis also takes issue with the radical greens' insistence that economic growth may only occur through the continued consumption of dwindling natural resources. Lewis uses the example of the replacement of copper wire by glass fiber optic cables as a refutation of this portrait of closing options. Indeed, Lewis's solution lies in what he terms "decoupling" humanity from nature, that is, an attempt increasingly to base our economic activities on the exploitation of inorganic, and, particularly, synthetic materials within a framework of "guided capitalism."

Lewis is clearly more interested in the problem of how best to achieve a decent and sustainable global environment rather than in that of assessing the philosophical issues and values that underlie this entire debate; one could object, as I have, to radical environmentalism on the grounds that it tends to absolutize its visions of environmental quality in a fundamentalist sort of way. However, Lewis's interest, to repeat, is in the question of how best to get "there" from "here" in a pragmatic sense. If there are problems with the way he has framed the issue, they are, first, that he has chosen as his targets fringes of a broad movement that have simply not demonstrated any credible appeal to date. Secondly, as a professed "environmentalist," he has not quite provided us with a clear vision of the good environment he wants to get to or with a philosophical, axiological basis that justifies his particular environmental vision. Today, as we strive to make all ideological arcana pellucid, we must make our own alternative visions no less clear. All of this aside, this is a very fine and provocative book that will notably enrich the environmental debate.

Douglas R. Weiner
University of Arizona