Our Earth, Ourselves: The Action-Oriented Guide to Help You Protect and Preserve Our Enviroment

By Ruth Caplan

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553348574
• ISBN13: 9780553348576
• Release Date: March 1990
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.9" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

A Very Useful Political Primer

Every year in the U.S., enlightened consumers, vegetarians, and organic farmers join together in a cry of "Save our Planet" for the observance of Earth Day. The organizers of the first Earth Day founded a group called Environmental Action, and it is their staff along with lead author Ruth Caplan that have produced this very useful political primer. The subtitle for this book is "The Action-Oriented Guide to Help You Protect and Preserve Our Environment", which is a good indicator of the book's commitment to the original Earth Day mandate. Unlike many other green environmental primers that bombard the reader with alarming statistics that pointedly uncover our ongoing environmental deterioration, each issue is patiently explained by the author and the Evironmental Action staff. In addition to sharing a number of simple things a consumer can do to help clean up the earth such as using non-toxic rather than toxic chemical household cleaners, this book advises one to "get political". In practical but often unlibertarian terms, the authors explain how to pressure policy makers and what to demand of them on an environmental issue. Caplan and the Environmental Action staff also explore the 1980s' emerging activists for ecological democracy, including profiles of individuals who have made the commitment to "think globally and act locally" through changes in their lifestyles and organizing their workplaces or communities. It is difficult to get discouraged by the overwhelming global picture when compared with the very small impact of one individual's voice and actions, after you read these profiles of successful ecological activists. The last chapter is "A Call to Action: Becoming an Environmental Activist", which explains how to start your own environmental organization and operate it effectively. Here the authors fail to examine the similarities between the corporate mode of non-profit organizations and the structure of corporations and resulting structural determinism. Oftentimes the corporatization of environmental organizations leads to the same self-destructive political behavior that steers the military-industrial complex. Perhaps another structure is necessary for environmental organizations to achieve cooperative ends? But in the authors' defense, an Arizona firefighter would agree that you sometimes fight fire with fire.