The Green Crusade: Rethinking the Roots of Environmentalism [Paperback]

Rubin's argument that many environmentalists have failed to recognize the utopian and totalitarian character of their principles is engrossing and provocative.Searching and provocative.Serious discussion of environmentalism is now impossible without reference to The Green Crusade. Rubin's groundbreaking book signals a new stage in the environmental debate. This is no anti-green polemic. Neither side of the debate is spared. But Rubin does pose the most serious intellectual challenge to environmentalists by demonstrating that they would do well to drop their tiresome warnings of impending disaster and instead reexamine their own principles. This book is the place for them to start.This most welcome and reasonable book comes at a time when the environmental movement, which should be evolving with the firm guidance of science, increasingly reflects the ideas and activities of utopians who desire to uproot our existing civilization and redesign our whole society in the process.This thoughtful and thought-provoking book provides another lesson on the unintended consequences of noble intentions.The book's contribution is to look in some detail at some of the campaigners who have been instrumental in making that transition occur and examining the implications and effects of their message and their methods.Cutting through the writings of the environmental movement's most prominent writers and thinkers, including Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Paul Elrich and E.F. Schumacher, Charles T. Rubin refutes their pretentions to scientific accuracy and reveals the radical foundations of their projects. He warns that these utopian reformers would willingly adopt totalitarian means to save us (as they see it) from ourselves.As recently as fifty years ago, the billowing industrial smokestack was a proud symbol of progress and power; today it is an image of unbridled corporate irresponsibility. This change in public attitudes reflects a shift in social values as rapid and profound as anl#}