Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist's World
A prescription to ease our environmental blunderings, delivered to a relentlessly upbeat tune, from sustainability maven AtKisson (Beyond the Limitis, not reviewed, etc.). Those doomsayers who have predicted the end of the planet as we know it, and have been proven wrong, have served to relegate all environmentally concerned comments to the fate of Cassandras mutterings: They are ignored. And so they should be, asserts AtKisson, for the earth is not a lost cause, even if the problems are vast: too many people, overuse of resources, and gross pollution. The answer is to stop the growth of population, waste, and resource use, and accelerate the kinds of development that lead to improvements in human technology and advances in the human condition. AtKisson hasnt the unbridled faith in technology of a Julian Simon, but he does believe it can be harnessed to do good by the earth. Witness, for example, the advances in defusing the nuclear-waste problem, or the industry-government covenants in the Netherlands. Human ingenuity is the key, and sustainability the goal; we cant consume faster than the resource is replenished, we cant dump faster than the earth can absorb. AtKissons sustainability isnt the hair-shirt variety: A sustainable world . . . is a wildly diverse and fascinating world, one that nurtures creative expression and poking into the unknown: It is the process of trying to approach Utopia from a thousand different directions. Implementation is where AtKisson loses his feel-good tone, by fluttering with the fickle winds of fashion to attract interest in sustainabilitythe Mainstreamers watch the Transformers for cues on what new ideas to adopt and are almost sure to followtreating the populace like cattle rather than thinking individuals who must draw their own moral compact with the natural world. AtKissons points are commonsensical, and doubtless sincereuntil his condescending finalebut also well traveled. Why should people start listening now?  --Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.