How to Save the World in Your Spare Time

David Bennett is the national director of the Department of Workplace Health, Safety and Environment at the Canadian Labour Congress in Ottawa.

May’s book on how to become an environmental activist was written
while she was executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada and before
she became leader of the Green Party of Canada. The book has three
overlapping target audiences: those who want to save the world on their
own, those who want to start their own environmental organization, and
(mainly) those who aim to participate in a pre-existing public interest
group.

The chapters evolve sequentially from getting organized and choosing
your goal through strategies involving campaigning, the media, public
mobilization, lobbying governments (in all its broad aspects), legal
action, and fundraising.

Some issues are, inevitably, passed over lightly, of which the three
most prominent are the evaluation by public interest groups of research
materials and sources; the role of scientific expertise or, more
generally, the relationship between science and environmental policy;
and the question of whether environmental protection and sustainable
development are, on balance, job-creating.

The book is written with great sparkle, wit, and panache. If much of it
is standard stuff for the working of NGOs (Non-Governmental
Organizations), it is well to remember that May is among the small
coterie of Canadian environmental leaders who have made it so.