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Ecotopia - The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston
by Ernest Callenbach

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3176634.Ecotopia_The_Notebooks_and_Reports_of_William_Weston?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Ecotopia - The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1207664735m/3176634.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3176634.Ecotopia_The_Notebooks_and_Reports_of_William_Weston?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Ecotopia - The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/70147.Ernest_Callenbach">Ernest Callenbach</a><br/><br/>
  <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/19720690?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
  rating: 3 of 5 stars<br/>a campy view of right now as predicted in 1975. surprisingly prescient for a hippie sci-fi book! has one line i'd love to pass on to micheal pollan on food production... pg. 21 (the Minister of Food for the newly formed country comprised of norcal, oregon, and washington speaking to the protagonist)  "'we constructed a national sludge drying system and natural fertilizer production. after seven years we were able to dispense with chemical fertilizers entirely. this was partly through sewage recycling, partly through garbage composting, partly through reliance on some novel nitrogen-fixing crops and crop rotation, and partly through methods of utilizing animal manure. you may have seen from the train that our farm animals are not kept in close confinement like yours. we like them to live in conditions approaching the natural. but not only for sentimental reasons. it also avoids the gigantic accumulation of manure which is such a problem in your feedlots and poultry factories.'[what about the economic drawbacks i asked:]'on the contrary, our system is considerably cheaper then yours, if we add in ALL the costs. many of your costs are ignored, or passed on through subterfuge to posterity or the general public. we on the other hand must acknowledge all costs. otherwise we could not hope to achieve the stable-state life systems which are our fundamental ecological and political goal. if, for instance, we had continued your practice of 'free' disposal of wastes in watercourses, sooner or later somebody else would have to calculate (and bear) the costs of the resulting dead rivers and lakes. we prefer to do it ourselves. it is obviously not easy to quantify certain of these costs. but we have been able to approximate them in workable political terms...'" if comments like this fail to appeal to your historical sensibilities then dont even THINK about reading this book! oh and ladies be forewarned.... the authors attempts at portraying post-pill feminism and female counter cultural mores are infantile, narcissistic, and perverse. come on... it was the seventies fer chrissakes!
  <br/><br/><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1046917?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Travis's review
rating:
bookshelves: fiction

a campy view of right now as predicted in 1975. surprisingly prescient for a hippie sci-fi book! has one line i'd love to pass on to micheal pollan on food production... pg. 21 (the Minister of Food for the newly formed country comprised of norcal, oregon, and washington speaking to the protagonist) "'we constructed a national sludge drying system and natural fertilizer production. after seven years we were able to dispense with chemical fertilizers entirely. this was partly through sewage recycling, partly through garbage composting, partly through reliance on some novel nitrogen-fixing crops and crop rotation, and partly through methods of utilizing animal manure. you may have seen from the train that our farm animals are not kept in close confinement like yours. we like them to live in conditions approaching the natural. but not only for sentimental reasons. it also avoids the gigantic accumulation of manure which is such a problem in your feedlots and poultry factories.'[what...more a campy view of right now as predicted in 1975. surprisingly prescient for a hippie sci-fi book! has one line i'd love to pass on to micheal pollan on food production... pg. 21 (the Minister of Food for the newly formed country comprised of norcal, oregon, and washington speaking to the protagonist) "'we constructed a national sludge drying system and natural fertilizer production. after seven years we were able to dispense with chemical fertilizers entirely. this was partly through sewage recycling, partly through garbage composting, partly through reliance on some novel nitrogen-fixing crops and crop rotation, and partly through methods of utilizing animal manure. you may have seen from the train that our farm animals are not kept in close confinement like yours. we like them to live in conditions approaching the natural. but not only for sentimental reasons. it also avoids the gigantic accumulation of manure which is such a problem in your feedlots and poultry factories.'[what about the economic drawbacks i asked:]'on the contrary, our system is considerably cheaper then yours, if we add in ALL the costs. many of your costs are ignored, or passed on through subterfuge to posterity or the general public. we on the other hand must acknowledge all costs. otherwise we could not hope to achieve the stable-state life systems which are our fundamental ecological and political goal. if, for instance, we had continued your practice of 'free' disposal of wastes in watercourses, sooner or later somebody else would have to calculate (and bear) the costs of the resulting dead rivers and lakes. we prefer to do it ourselves. it is obviously not easy to quantify certain of these costs. but we have been able to approximate them in workable political terms...'" if comments like this fail to appeal to your historical sensibilities then dont even THINK about reading this book! oh and ladies be forewarned.... the authors attempts at portraying post-pill feminism and female counter cultural mores are infantile, narcissistic, and perverse. come on... it was the seventies fer chrissakes!...less

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