Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist

by Paul Kingsnorth

Paperback, 2017

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Faber & Faber (2017), Edition: Main, 304 pages

Description

"Paul Kingsnorth was once an activist--an ardent environmentalist. He fought against rampant development and the depredations of a corporate world that seemed hell-bent on ignoring a looming climate crisis in its relentless pursuit of profit. But as the environmental movement began to focus on "sustainability" rather than the defense of wild places for their own sake, and as global conditions worsened, he grew disenchanted with the movement that he once embraced. He gave up what he saw as the false hope that residents of the First World would ever make the kind of sacrifices that might avert the severe consequences of climate change. Full of grief and fury as well as passionate, lyrical evocations of nature and the wild, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist gathers the wave-making essays that have charted the change in Kingsnorth's thinking. In them he articulates a new vision, one that stands firmly in opposition to the belief that technology can save us, and he argues for a renewed balance between the human and nonhuman worlds."--Page 4 of cover.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Devil_llama

The author is the natural heir to Edward Abbey, with a similar style and a similar worldview. He exposes many of the weaknesses of the current push for "sustainability"; though perhaps missing some of the less obvious problems, he does capture the tie of sustainability to corporate, industrial, and

capitalistic ideas. There is much to like in this book, and much to make you think, though it isn't difficult to see that the author's preferred answers are no more workable or acceptable than the technical solutions he rightfully excoriates. His withdrawal from the world of activism, his decision to make a difference in one small corner of the world rather than trying to 'save the world' when he knows it can't be saved reads like many of the green movements attacks on modernity, and his discussion of his solution that rejects most of modernity is only superficially appealing and unlikely to make any real difference, even in his corner (which at one point he appears to recognize). In addition, he has a bad habit of lumping "science" into a single category, and attributes to "science" attitudes that do not currently belong to much of science, though you will find them in some branches of physics, genetics, and technology. Overall, the book is poetic and inspiring, and I will definitely recommend it to my students, as he takes on some of the big questions that are being answered so poorly in much of what passes for the environmental movement; the questions are so big, and so complex, it is hardly his fault that he fails to answer them well. It is a good first step to at least ask the right questions.

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LibraryThing member PDCRead

Paul Kingsnorth was a passionate environmentalist, taking the time to be involved in activities and protests against the creep of corporate and governmental interests that threatened the climate and places with ill thought out developments. His view started to change as the business world embraced

green ideals, and those opposing them watered down their vociferous defence of our wild places and cosied up to sustainability instead. He saw it as a betrayal of the movement as they chose to ignore the challenges and sacrifices that need to be made to avert the consequences of climate change.

In this great collection of essays, Kingsnorth passionately argues how the green movement has failed, and as he has seen it fail, how his thinking on what we need to do has changed. His new hypothesis he calls 'dark ecology’, a vision where we do not have to rely on complicated technology to save us, but rather one where we need to once again seek the balance that we had with the natural world. It is a challenging read, not in the sense of his prose, which fizzles with raw energy, but in the way that he is prepared to challenge everything that he has every stood for, and ask the question: Where next?

Thought provoking stuff.

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