Hey folks, thought some of you might be interested in this. Disclaimer: Tom
is friend and colleague.
Blair Sandler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
****************************
This is a blurb for my book. You might be interested. On
the other hand, you might not be. But please don't get too
irritated at this shamelessly forward use of the internet.
I mean, what the hell, I don't own a newspaper...
This, by the way, is marketing copy. It's true though.
-- toma
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.
