Simple Things Won't Save the Earth

By J. Robert Hunter and J Robert Hunter

Book Overview

We drive cars with "Save the Whales" bumper stickers, buy aerosol sprays that advertise "no chlorofluorocarbons," and wear T-shirts made from organically grown cotton. All of these "earth friendly" choices and products convince us that we are "thinking globally, acting locally" and saving the planet. But are we really?

In this provocative book, J. Robert Hunter asserts that using catchy slogans and symbols to sell the public on environmental conservation is ineffective, misleading, and even dangerous. Debunking the Fifty Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth approach, Hunter shows that there are no simple solutions to major environmental problems such as species extinction, ozone depletion, global warming, pollution, and non-renewable resource consumption.

The use of slogans and symbols, Hunter argues, simply gives the public a false sense that "someone" is solving the environmental crisis--while it remains as serious now as when the environmental movement began. Writing in plain yet passionate prose for general readers, he here opens a national debate on what is really required to preserve the earth as a habitat for the human species.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0292731132
• ISBN13: 9780292731134
• Release Date: June 1997
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Length: 217 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent and simply stated message on our ecological future

For the ecologically interested but untrained and uninitiated lay people, Hunter offers a real connection between the Homo sapiens (humans) and mother nature through his symbolic use of the Hevea rubber tree as well as his exploration of petroleum as an alternative to natural rubber. From the most developed to the new developing countries, a majority of people can relate to the rubber tree either as consumers of its final products or as providers of the raw materials in plantations. The rubber tree offers an example of the discovery, exploitation, and abuse of earth's resources. In simple language and unsophisticated, clear analogies, Hunter exposes basic assumptions of technological development. Most of us are blinded by the Cartesian mentality where the scientific method is always expected to yield answers in all matters of mother nature; the only impediment is time. Hunter offers sufficient but not overwhelming statistics on humans' need for rubber and the realities of growing such a single-tree crop. Without using the "doomsday" style characteristic of much of the popular ecological literature, Hunter present a sober picture of earth's future, should we continue our current rate of exploitation of natural resources justified by human's insatiable needs. Our behavior is compared to the insects or microorganisms that, finding a large supply of their preferred nourishment, abandon all logic and proceed to feed and multiply until the source of food is gone and the environment is depleted, hence causing their own demise. Perhaps my only, but minor, critique is that, while Hunter states at various times that the major ecological problem is population growth, he fails to address the issue at a deeper level. The miserable working conditions of the Para rubber tree tappers are exposed, but further explorations of the social aspects of ecological calamities are lacking. Implications of technological innovations, such as waste and pollution, overlord-subservient relationships between individuals, a full and happy life only for a few, and a conversely dreary existence for the majority, are mentioned and taken as a perennial fact without further explanation. And finally, population control is hinted as a solution to the ecological dilemma in an earth with finite resources, but few ideas are offered on the implementation of such a strategy. Hunter does convey the message across with his simple, clear, and uncluttered style. After starting his book I was compelled to continue reading until the end, and I sense that the ecological message will find a wider appeal when others replicate my experience.