Beginning again : people and nature in the new millennium /

"The business of prophecy is not simply foretelling the future; rather, it is describing the present with exceptional truthfulness and accuracy." Here, Ehrenfeld assumes the role of a modern-day prophet in describing truthfully and accurately what he sees as the present relationship between humans and their environment. He ranges widely in this volume of essays, the majority of which originally appeared in Orion Nature Quarterly. As an ecologist he addresses many of the environmental problems of our day--loss of biodiversity, pesticide poisoning, nuclear contamination. It is not the specifics of these issues, however, that give this book its strength. Rather, it is the author's accusations that misguided attitudes have led to these problems. Ehrenfeld's recurring theme is that our relentless quest to control, our desire to consume, and our belief in perpetual growth have caused us to overmanage and degrade our environment and our societies. While all may not agree with his prophecies, all must listen to his warnings. A must for those interested in the philosophical relationship between humans and nature. General; undergraduate. F. T. Kuserk; Moravian College

Ehrenfeld (Biology/Rutgers; The Arrogance of Humanism, 1978, etc.) lambastes some richly deserving hate objects--greedheads, death merchants, control freaks, lusters after power, mossbacks, and scofflaws--folks busy turning planet Earth into a spiritual and environmental cesspool. This collection of 20 quick, deft essays on our relationship to each other and nature has a Faustian theme: We have gambled away any semblance of an unaffected relationship with the natural world to pursue evanescent moments of power and control and material plenty. It's a tale of how human avarice, ignorance, blind faith in technology and experts, and overweening pride of place in the planetary structure have sent us headlong into the abyss. Our habitat is being destroyed, Ehrenfeld says, and our cultural and ethical heritage reduced to barbarism. It's time to scale back, decrease consumption, delay gratification, jettison illusions, get real. Which is hardly late-breaking news--but Ehrenfeld's essays are wonderfully tight, well-phrased, convincing arguments that occasionally slip into stream-of-consciousness mode, his thoughts beetling around in Brownian motion, charming and funny. While this conciseness is ideal for simple, short essays, however, here many arguments (such as that on overmanagement) are served up time and again, allowing the sandman to make major inroads into your concentration. More irksome is the thankfully infrequent patronizing, scolding tone (``When we travel to untamed places, it behooves us not to dismiss wildness, or to try and bludgeon them into complacent submissiveness''). These essays can't be said to chart unexplored regions, but the ground Ehrenfeld covers gets a good and thorough turning.