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Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism
Environmentalists have always worked to protect the wildness of nature but now must find a new direction. We have so tamed, colonized, and contaminated the natural world that safeguarding it from humans is no longer an option. Humanity's imprint is now everywhere and all efforts to "preserve" nature require extensive human intervention. At the same time, we are repeatedly told that there is no such thing as nature itself -- only our own conceptions of it. One person's endangered species is another's dinner or source of income. In "Living Through the End of Nature," Paul Wapner probes the meaning of environmentalism in a postnature age.
Wapner argues that we can neither go back to a preindustrial Elysium nor forward to a technological utopia. He proposes a third way that takes seriously the breached boundary between humans and nature and charts a co-evolutionary path in which environmentalists exploit the tension between naturalism and mastery to build a more sustainable, ecologically vibrant, and socially just world.
Beautifully written and thoughtfully argued, " Living Through the End" of Nature provides a powerful vision for environmentalism's future
Wapner argues that we can neither go back to a preindustrial Elysium nor forward to a technological utopia. He proposes a third way that takes seriously the breached boundary between humans and nature and charts a co-evolutionary path in which environmentalists exploit the tension between naturalism and mastery to build a more sustainable, ecologically vibrant, and socially just world.
Beautifully written and thoughtfully argued, " Living Through the End" of Nature provides a powerful vision for environmentalism's future
266 pages, Paperback
First published February 12, 2010
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August 29, 2020
Wapner makes a good, helpful argument: Stop trying to keep nature and humanity in separate but competing compartments, because we already co-exist in every compartment. Instead, figure out how to co-exist in a more mutually beneficial way. The argument could be made more briefly and simply, but Wapner must deal with the complexities of passionate positions among environmentalists past and present. He must show that he understands their arguments, so he briefly recaps the discourses of nature protectionists. He even shows real understanding for advocates of technological mastery over nature. The aim is to harmonize all insights into a greater, more subtle, less ideological quest for a better shared future.
January 15, 2012
A book called The End of Nature, published in 1997, presented the idea that nature as we know it is gone. Pure wilderness, untouched by humans, no longer exists. Every drop of seawater, every cubic meter of air in the atmosphere, even the global temperature, have been affected by the byproducts of human civilization.
This book, Living Through the End of Nature, takes the end of nature as a premise, and asks what environmentalists -- those who cherish the non-human parts of the earth (wilderness), and worry about the Earth's capacity to sustain human life -- should do now.
=== The Dual Dreams of Nature and Mastery
The book argues that public debates on the subject of nature and the environment are rarely fruitful because of the divergent philosophies brought to the table by the participants. The book identifies two key philosophies on this front.
The first is what the author calls the dream of nature. This philosophy values alignment with the natural world. This is everything from taking pleasure in the beauty of forests and mountains to taking cues from the natural world about how we should live our lives -- what food we should eat, how we should build our homes, what clothes we should wear. Even the word "nature" implies this value: what is natural is what is true and right, what is unnatural is that which should be avoided.
The second is what the author calls the dream of mastery. This philosophy believes that what is true and right can be found inside human nature. Our reason, our morality, our compassion. Nature is savage, cruel, and without ethics; humans can rise above our primal, animal origins to become something greater. Our mastery of the planet we live on is a profound triumph of the things that make humans different from the rest of nature.
The author argues that both worldviews are outdated. Wildness untouched by humanity no longer exists; and man as a create separate from nature is social constructivism. He argues that we should instead seek a third philosophy, one that draws from both. "We find aspects of both naturalism and mastery alive within us. Most of us like the idea of letting nature take its course when it is convenient to do so *and* altering nature's trajectory when it becomes appealing or necessary. Indeed, we live our lives doing both."
One example of how both the dreams of nature and mastery can be mistaken is our current approach to conservationism. The standard approach is to draw a fence around an area of wilderness, and declare that on one side lies nature, and on the other man. But this does not work out quite as we imagine. There are always humans living on the border of wilderness spaces, typically people who either make their livelihoods from the creatures and plants within (even something as simple as gathering firewood from a forest), or who find the creatures and plants within pests that disturb their lives (such as predators in a wildlife preserve preying on their domesticated animals).
And, these spaces are often not the pure wildness we imagine them to be. The Grand Canyon, for example, had tribes of Native Americans living in them for ten thousand years at the time it was declared a national park. The people who had lived there were kicked out, all the evidence of their former presence removed, and then the Grand Canyon was declared "pristine wilderness.
=== Stewards of the Earth
In the end, the book argues that modern environmentalism can, and in fact is already rapidly becoming, an active stewardship by mankind of nature's wildness. Everything from growing coral reefs to measuring entire ecosystems with thousands of tiny devices known as "motes." While at first glance this may seem like the dream of mastery, the important difference is that it is not domination, not bending nature's resources to man's needs. Instead, it is cultivation.
Environmentalism's primary message today -- use fewer resources by changing our personal habits -- is, the author says, a fool's errand. Partially this is because global climate change, as one example, is already set in motion and cannot be undone, even if we drop our consumption to zero today. But more importantly, it attempts to fight against "that part of us that wants to grow, consume, and materially experience the many facets of life. This is the part of us that thrives on human ingenuity and the breaking of various kinds of barriers. Cutting back calls on us to curtail this dimension of ourselves. It asks us to turn off the urge for more material things, greater convenience, and more ease. In this sense, the message of sacrifice has an almost misanthropic ring to it. It suggests a dislike of humans, since our numbers are so high and our material acquisitiveness (and its accompanying energy use) is so significant. Misanthropy is a difficult politics to advice and sustain."
Instead, he argues for seeking ways to use technology to help heal the earth -- for example, investing in an array of orbital space optics to filter out some quantity of the sun's rays, buying time while we attempt to convert away from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy. This requires both acknowledgment of global warming as a massive problem worth investing huge amounts of capital into at the level of national or world government -- a difficult admission for dream-of-mastery people. But it also requires acknowledgment that humanity is not going to drastically reduce its population or energy-use habits through sheer finger-wagging -- a difficult admission for dream-of-nature people.
One criticism one could level against this "stewardship of the earth" argument is that man has often attempted this in the past, and in doing so made the mess much worse. Ecosystems are hugely complex and our knowledge of how they work is still sparse. A famous example would be the way that the US forestry department put out all forest fires in national forests for many years, thereby blocking a critical part of the nature process of life (old, dead growth periodically being cleared out to make way for new growth). History is littered with incidents like this. But, to counter my own counterargument, perhaps there is no other choice -- we'll make some mistakes, but eventually learn how to effectively cultivate ecosystems of all sorts.
=== Wrap-up
In a rare personal moment, the author gives a telling take on the life of an environmentalist: "Many of us as environmentalists are a pretty sorry lot to hang out with. We walk around angry at our fellow citizens for the way they squander resources and fail to appreciate the preciousness of the earth, and voice a constant complaint about global and regional inequities when it comes the distribution of the earth's bounty. We look around at our societies and find little to admire."
The book's wording is something a bit lofty, and I suspect simpler language would have made it a smoother read. At the same time, the poetic language it uses to capture the deep passions the author has for wilderness -- its wonder, its beauty, its danger -- made its message more poignant. The author's passion for nature and the environment shone through in an inspirational way. And yet, the author's approach to thinking about these problems is pragmatic and analytical. He acknowledges that environmentalism is fundamentally a religious, or perhaps we should say spiritual, issue. (So is the dream of mastery -- see Ayn Rand.) Feelings of this nature can and should drive our purposes as individuals and as a society, and yet they must be tempered by, and managed with, critical thinking and pragmatic analysis. In that, Living Through the End of Nature is a powerful and inspiring example.
This book, Living Through the End of Nature, takes the end of nature as a premise, and asks what environmentalists -- those who cherish the non-human parts of the earth (wilderness), and worry about the Earth's capacity to sustain human life -- should do now.
=== The Dual Dreams of Nature and Mastery
The book argues that public debates on the subject of nature and the environment are rarely fruitful because of the divergent philosophies brought to the table by the participants. The book identifies two key philosophies on this front.
The first is what the author calls the dream of nature. This philosophy values alignment with the natural world. This is everything from taking pleasure in the beauty of forests and mountains to taking cues from the natural world about how we should live our lives -- what food we should eat, how we should build our homes, what clothes we should wear. Even the word "nature" implies this value: what is natural is what is true and right, what is unnatural is that which should be avoided.
The second is what the author calls the dream of mastery. This philosophy believes that what is true and right can be found inside human nature. Our reason, our morality, our compassion. Nature is savage, cruel, and without ethics; humans can rise above our primal, animal origins to become something greater. Our mastery of the planet we live on is a profound triumph of the things that make humans different from the rest of nature.
The author argues that both worldviews are outdated. Wildness untouched by humanity no longer exists; and man as a create separate from nature is social constructivism. He argues that we should instead seek a third philosophy, one that draws from both. "We find aspects of both naturalism and mastery alive within us. Most of us like the idea of letting nature take its course when it is convenient to do so *and* altering nature's trajectory when it becomes appealing or necessary. Indeed, we live our lives doing both."
One example of how both the dreams of nature and mastery can be mistaken is our current approach to conservationism. The standard approach is to draw a fence around an area of wilderness, and declare that on one side lies nature, and on the other man. But this does not work out quite as we imagine. There are always humans living on the border of wilderness spaces, typically people who either make their livelihoods from the creatures and plants within (even something as simple as gathering firewood from a forest), or who find the creatures and plants within pests that disturb their lives (such as predators in a wildlife preserve preying on their domesticated animals).
And, these spaces are often not the pure wildness we imagine them to be. The Grand Canyon, for example, had tribes of Native Americans living in them for ten thousand years at the time it was declared a national park. The people who had lived there were kicked out, all the evidence of their former presence removed, and then the Grand Canyon was declared "pristine wilderness.
=== Stewards of the Earth
In the end, the book argues that modern environmentalism can, and in fact is already rapidly becoming, an active stewardship by mankind of nature's wildness. Everything from growing coral reefs to measuring entire ecosystems with thousands of tiny devices known as "motes." While at first glance this may seem like the dream of mastery, the important difference is that it is not domination, not bending nature's resources to man's needs. Instead, it is cultivation.
Environmentalism's primary message today -- use fewer resources by changing our personal habits -- is, the author says, a fool's errand. Partially this is because global climate change, as one example, is already set in motion and cannot be undone, even if we drop our consumption to zero today. But more importantly, it attempts to fight against "that part of us that wants to grow, consume, and materially experience the many facets of life. This is the part of us that thrives on human ingenuity and the breaking of various kinds of barriers. Cutting back calls on us to curtail this dimension of ourselves. It asks us to turn off the urge for more material things, greater convenience, and more ease. In this sense, the message of sacrifice has an almost misanthropic ring to it. It suggests a dislike of humans, since our numbers are so high and our material acquisitiveness (and its accompanying energy use) is so significant. Misanthropy is a difficult politics to advice and sustain."
Instead, he argues for seeking ways to use technology to help heal the earth -- for example, investing in an array of orbital space optics to filter out some quantity of the sun's rays, buying time while we attempt to convert away from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy. This requires both acknowledgment of global warming as a massive problem worth investing huge amounts of capital into at the level of national or world government -- a difficult admission for dream-of-mastery people. But it also requires acknowledgment that humanity is not going to drastically reduce its population or energy-use habits through sheer finger-wagging -- a difficult admission for dream-of-nature people.
One criticism one could level against this "stewardship of the earth" argument is that man has often attempted this in the past, and in doing so made the mess much worse. Ecosystems are hugely complex and our knowledge of how they work is still sparse. A famous example would be the way that the US forestry department put out all forest fires in national forests for many years, thereby blocking a critical part of the nature process of life (old, dead growth periodically being cleared out to make way for new growth). History is littered with incidents like this. But, to counter my own counterargument, perhaps there is no other choice -- we'll make some mistakes, but eventually learn how to effectively cultivate ecosystems of all sorts.
=== Wrap-up
In a rare personal moment, the author gives a telling take on the life of an environmentalist: "Many of us as environmentalists are a pretty sorry lot to hang out with. We walk around angry at our fellow citizens for the way they squander resources and fail to appreciate the preciousness of the earth, and voice a constant complaint about global and regional inequities when it comes the distribution of the earth's bounty. We look around at our societies and find little to admire."
The book's wording is something a bit lofty, and I suspect simpler language would have made it a smoother read. At the same time, the poetic language it uses to capture the deep passions the author has for wilderness -- its wonder, its beauty, its danger -- made its message more poignant. The author's passion for nature and the environment shone through in an inspirational way. And yet, the author's approach to thinking about these problems is pragmatic and analytical. He acknowledges that environmentalism is fundamentally a religious, or perhaps we should say spiritual, issue. (So is the dream of mastery -- see Ayn Rand.) Feelings of this nature can and should drive our purposes as individuals and as a society, and yet they must be tempered by, and managed with, critical thinking and pragmatic analysis. In that, Living Through the End of Nature is a powerful and inspiring example.
July 25, 2011
This slim book was surprisingly refreshing in presenting opposing ends of the debate on environmental preservation, with one end valuing unblemished nature as the highest good, and the other espousing the innate right of mankind to subdue and use his environment for his own benefit. Thinking out of the box and trying to understand both perspectives made for interesting reading. Too many books on the environment are 'doom and gloom' as the writer puts it, without trying to explain the reasons we continue to devastate nature with seemingly no restraint. However, Wapner falls short of elucidating any convincing practical solution, which I guess is expected given the sheer complexity and scale of the problems. The proposed 'middle path' between naturalism and human mastery ends up frustratingly vague and difficult to envision.
September 29, 2010
The book that environmentalism has been waiting for. Logically argued and emotionally appealed, this book requests for the systemic changes within the ideologies governing the notion of development and life.
February 22, 2016
The environmental thought is haunted by the 'end of nature' (or rather 'ends of nature' as Wapner properly names it) for some time now and it seems that few have tried to sketch the possible way forth and fewer yet - if any - succeeded in finding a strong ground, a new paradigm for environmentalism.
Paul Wapner in this quite nicely written and easily readable book tried to do this. Did he succeed? I'm not very convinced.
In the first half of the book Wapner skillfully, but with not enough philosophical precision in my opinion, analyses the presumptions or paradigms underlying the environmental debate for decades. His distinction between 'dream of naturalism' and 'dream of mastery' is a good analytical conceptualization and enables him to pinpoint some of the important beliefs and reveal metaphysical bases of both environmentalists and eco-skeptics. Though this dichotomy is not entirely novel (basically it's very akin to the distinction between eco/biocentric approach on one hand and anthropocentric on the other), the analysis is fairly thorough and allows the reader to fully realize the hiatus between the two worldviews and understand that there cannot possibly be any meaningful debate between them.
As Wapner shows, both these dreams build upon fundamental (even metaphysical) distinction between nature and humans. The 'dream of naturalism' takes nature as the standard against which the true, good, right and beautiful is measured. On the other hand the 'dream of mastery' does the opposite proclaiming humanity as the measure of truth, goodness, rightness and beauty. In both cases he nicely shows how the opposite groups (environmentalists and eco-skeptics) employ these beliefs and assumptions in their agenda and argumentation. He then argues that neither of them is philosophically nor practically tenable in a post-nature age.
The second half is dedicated to charting a possible way forward. I agree with the author that maintaining the aforementioned dichotomy and even holding to the notion of nature as something fundamentally other than human and with no human intervention is a no go or at least a dead end. However, his proposition about choosing a "middle path" in form of realizing that we cannot "leave nature alone" and thus it's upon us to decide what (i.e. how much destroyed) world we want to live in appears to me as a road to relativistic hell.
There are two things I see as the most problematic:
1. It's nice (and probably also good) to get rid of the 'dream of naturalism' and some untenable metaphysical assumptions that go with it. But if the skeptics do not abandon the 'dream of mastery' as well, won't the environmentalism just loose its ground and, accepting some parts of the 'mastery' discourse as Wapner advises, give the skeptics a warm feeling that they have been right all along? And it's very likely that they won't abandon it. Why should they? The dream is here at least 300 years, when Francis Bacon called to scholars for nature to be "bound into service, hounded in her wanderings and put on the rack and tortured for her secrets", and since then it brought us (here in the North) prosperity and well-being never seen before. Does Wapner think that by doing this environmentalism can attract people from the other side? To me it seems more like telling them: "OK, go on with what you're doing, just try to do a little less of it." From the economic perspective it apppears as a sort of chimera similar to environmental economy (compared to ecological or green economy). In some parts, Wapner even openly admits his sympathy for further development just replacing fossil fuels with renewables and the like. This - to me - is more of a death trap than way forward not only for environmentalism but for the humanity as a whole. Wapner sees this danger (pp. 211-212) and claims that "For without the 'god' of humanity behind the dream of mastery, environmentalists can gesture toward such a dream without worrying about abandoning established and cherished principles." And that's precisely where he is plainly wrong: did the skeptics revoke the "god of humanity" or are they about to do so?
I'm not saying that we should also hold to the 'dream of naturalism' and its untenable principles and assumptions. Quite the contrary as I said before. Holding to them can be - and often already is - also very undermining for the environmental movement. I just don't see Wapner's way as the right way forward. That is related to the second problematic point of his work as I see it.
2. Reading the book (published in 2010) I had a strong feeling that environmentalism is somehow missing the train. The critique that leads Wapner and others (e.g. Steven Vogel, whose new book Thinking Like a Mall: Environmental Philosophy After the End of Nature I'm about to read next) to trying to find new ways for environmental discourse and movement is more than 20 years old. Bill McKibben published The End of Nature at the end of 80's and the eco-criticism that deconstructed the idea of nature flourished mainly in the 90's. A more than a decade later the only answer Wapner can offer is - what a surprise - embracing the ambiguity of the current (postmodern) situation and learn to live with paradoxes. Where is the invention here? It just reveals that the environmentalism may still be confined in its own bubble. One can rather read a plethora of postmodern philosophers, sociologists, political theorists and others that reflected this (more general) situation years ago and proposed similar way of dealing with it - but with more philosophical precision and probably even with more invention. Unfortunately, I didn't read them yet so I'm unable to compare it better.
I'm probably doing environmentalism an injustice, generalizing from Wapner's book. There are surely many environmental theorists that deal with the situation in better and more inventive ways. My reaction is probably exaggerated a bit and that is mainly because the book tries to sell the ideas as the only viable way for the movement (or at least the most viable) and because the book actually hit the nail on the head in revealing what I take to be the biggest problem and challenge of environmentalism today: that it is unable to deal with the postmodern situation and all the critique it brought (whether stemming from the biophysical situation of the world, concepts' deconstruction or some strains of the evolution biology) and come up with a strong and fruitful philosophical and practical stance that would offer a genuine way forward and a real alternative to the mainstream thought, economics and politics. Wapner's book highlighted this - and not by criticizing the dream of naturalism but by the chimeric alternative it offers.
There is, however, one aspect of the alternative the author proposes, that is definitely worth consideration and that is the shift in the meaning of wilderness or rather wildness (pp. 162-163) from the notion of nature untamed by humans (which is, as many authors rightly show, a very ethnocentric or even racist concept based on colonialist view of the Americas in 15th century) to a notion of otherness that can be found both outside and inside us (here, to my great pleasure, Wapner cites David Abram). This kind of wildness is for me precisely what we should try to protect and maybe even cultivate, as George Monbiot eloquently describes in his recent book Feral.
Paul Wapner in this quite nicely written and easily readable book tried to do this. Did he succeed? I'm not very convinced.
In the first half of the book Wapner skillfully, but with not enough philosophical precision in my opinion, analyses the presumptions or paradigms underlying the environmental debate for decades. His distinction between 'dream of naturalism' and 'dream of mastery' is a good analytical conceptualization and enables him to pinpoint some of the important beliefs and reveal metaphysical bases of both environmentalists and eco-skeptics. Though this dichotomy is not entirely novel (basically it's very akin to the distinction between eco/biocentric approach on one hand and anthropocentric on the other), the analysis is fairly thorough and allows the reader to fully realize the hiatus between the two worldviews and understand that there cannot possibly be any meaningful debate between them.
As Wapner shows, both these dreams build upon fundamental (even metaphysical) distinction between nature and humans. The 'dream of naturalism' takes nature as the standard against which the true, good, right and beautiful is measured. On the other hand the 'dream of mastery' does the opposite proclaiming humanity as the measure of truth, goodness, rightness and beauty. In both cases he nicely shows how the opposite groups (environmentalists and eco-skeptics) employ these beliefs and assumptions in their agenda and argumentation. He then argues that neither of them is philosophically nor practically tenable in a post-nature age.
The second half is dedicated to charting a possible way forward. I agree with the author that maintaining the aforementioned dichotomy and even holding to the notion of nature as something fundamentally other than human and with no human intervention is a no go or at least a dead end. However, his proposition about choosing a "middle path" in form of realizing that we cannot "leave nature alone" and thus it's upon us to decide what (i.e. how much destroyed) world we want to live in appears to me as a road to relativistic hell.
There are two things I see as the most problematic:
1. It's nice (and probably also good) to get rid of the 'dream of naturalism' and some untenable metaphysical assumptions that go with it. But if the skeptics do not abandon the 'dream of mastery' as well, won't the environmentalism just loose its ground and, accepting some parts of the 'mastery' discourse as Wapner advises, give the skeptics a warm feeling that they have been right all along? And it's very likely that they won't abandon it. Why should they? The dream is here at least 300 years, when Francis Bacon called to scholars for nature to be "bound into service, hounded in her wanderings and put on the rack and tortured for her secrets", and since then it brought us (here in the North) prosperity and well-being never seen before. Does Wapner think that by doing this environmentalism can attract people from the other side? To me it seems more like telling them: "OK, go on with what you're doing, just try to do a little less of it." From the economic perspective it apppears as a sort of chimera similar to environmental economy (compared to ecological or green economy). In some parts, Wapner even openly admits his sympathy for further development just replacing fossil fuels with renewables and the like. This - to me - is more of a death trap than way forward not only for environmentalism but for the humanity as a whole. Wapner sees this danger (pp. 211-212) and claims that "For without the 'god' of humanity behind the dream of mastery, environmentalists can gesture toward such a dream without worrying about abandoning established and cherished principles." And that's precisely where he is plainly wrong: did the skeptics revoke the "god of humanity" or are they about to do so?
I'm not saying that we should also hold to the 'dream of naturalism' and its untenable principles and assumptions. Quite the contrary as I said before. Holding to them can be - and often already is - also very undermining for the environmental movement. I just don't see Wapner's way as the right way forward. That is related to the second problematic point of his work as I see it.
2. Reading the book (published in 2010) I had a strong feeling that environmentalism is somehow missing the train. The critique that leads Wapner and others (e.g. Steven Vogel, whose new book Thinking Like a Mall: Environmental Philosophy After the End of Nature I'm about to read next) to trying to find new ways for environmental discourse and movement is more than 20 years old. Bill McKibben published The End of Nature at the end of 80's and the eco-criticism that deconstructed the idea of nature flourished mainly in the 90's. A more than a decade later the only answer Wapner can offer is - what a surprise - embracing the ambiguity of the current (postmodern) situation and learn to live with paradoxes. Where is the invention here? It just reveals that the environmentalism may still be confined in its own bubble. One can rather read a plethora of postmodern philosophers, sociologists, political theorists and others that reflected this (more general) situation years ago and proposed similar way of dealing with it - but with more philosophical precision and probably even with more invention. Unfortunately, I didn't read them yet so I'm unable to compare it better.
I'm probably doing environmentalism an injustice, generalizing from Wapner's book. There are surely many environmental theorists that deal with the situation in better and more inventive ways. My reaction is probably exaggerated a bit and that is mainly because the book tries to sell the ideas as the only viable way for the movement (or at least the most viable) and because the book actually hit the nail on the head in revealing what I take to be the biggest problem and challenge of environmentalism today: that it is unable to deal with the postmodern situation and all the critique it brought (whether stemming from the biophysical situation of the world, concepts' deconstruction or some strains of the evolution biology) and come up with a strong and fruitful philosophical and practical stance that would offer a genuine way forward and a real alternative to the mainstream thought, economics and politics. Wapner's book highlighted this - and not by criticizing the dream of naturalism but by the chimeric alternative it offers.
There is, however, one aspect of the alternative the author proposes, that is definitely worth consideration and that is the shift in the meaning of wilderness or rather wildness (pp. 162-163) from the notion of nature untamed by humans (which is, as many authors rightly show, a very ethnocentric or even racist concept based on colonialist view of the Americas in 15th century) to a notion of otherness that can be found both outside and inside us (here, to my great pleasure, Wapner cites David Abram). This kind of wildness is for me precisely what we should try to protect and maybe even cultivate, as George Monbiot eloquently describes in his recent book Feral.
October 30, 2015
In Living Through the End of Nature, Paul Wapner informs us of the progression of American environmentalism. The novel takes the reader through the history of interaction between man and nature and addresses his theory of a "post nature age". Wapner points out what modern environmentalists have to do in order to live in peace with nature without completely stopping human technological advances.
Within the novel, Wapner makes sure to structure the book to emphasize the most important points with future environmentalism. He makes sure to include different opinions about the subject from many naturalists with varying views. Although I found the structure and writing of the book intriguing, as I continued reading, the sections seemed to drag on with the same repeated topics. The initial debate on whether humans and nature could coexist in harmony was fascinating, but the tangled concepts about the one subject made the book difficult to understand at times.
Overall, I give this book a 4/5 on GoodReads. I loved reading a book where the author explains both sides of the spectrum when discussing modern environmentalism and still had the courage to address the intimidating future. I would recommend this to book to an older audience because of the complexity of the writing, but if you truly enjoy debates on this topic, like myself, this would be the perfect book.
July 17, 2017
Well thought out and thoroughly explained
This is a great volume for those who are looking for a way to see passed the political binary that is environmental politics today. It is honest, well reasoned and hopeful. A nice change from the absolute doom and gloom of environmental literature.
This is a great volume for those who are looking for a way to see passed the political binary that is environmental politics today. It is honest, well reasoned and hopeful. A nice change from the absolute doom and gloom of environmental literature.
May 24, 2018
It was sad and lovely to read the words of people my own age, wrestling with the same joy and despair I feel. I love this world and am so angry and sad about the ravages of man-made climate change. Reading this was like going to a grief group.
May 24, 2014
Advocates a middle path between reifying a concept of pure nature and asserting that the world is so fallen that there's nothing conceivably wild left.
March 15, 2025
The writing makes it clear that Paul understands the viewpoint of both sides. So well that I couldn't tell what stance he believed in himself. Impressive and thought provoking! Unfortunately the synthesis isn't detailed or comprehensive, but nonetheless it is true that mastery and nature are outdated and current ethics leave something to be desired.
Prescient because we still haven't faced the truth yet.
Prescient because we still haven't faced the truth yet.
April 17, 2016
I've been trying to figure out who the target audience was for this book; it certainly wasn't me. I felt as if I was reading a psychology text. The discussion of the historical schism between the ideas of naturalism and mastery was clear and fairly well written, as was the explanation of "the end of nature." I was pretty familiar with these ideas before reading this book, so I read these sections pretty quickly. I was disappointed in the "how do we respond" discussion. I guess I was hoping for some concrete discussion of how to use the end-of-nature thinking to actually make decisions regarding humanity's place on the planet. Instead, I felt as if the author's objective was to reduce cognitive dissonance without any real solutions to the many challenges we face.
March 3, 2016
"In a paradoxical sense, confidence comes not from knowing everything and being able to control our experience but rather from knowing that we do not know everything, and nonetheless finding ways to live meaningfully and work on behalf of life. "
June 25, 2014
Deep ab accurate exploration of our relationship with, and conception of, nature. Excellent book.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews