Good News for a Change: Hope for a Troubled Planet

Patrick Colgan is Director of Research and Natural Lands at the Royal
Botanical Gardens.

Chroniclers of much ailing the world environmentally and otherwise,
Suzuki and Dressel in this book focus on a perceived “groundswell of
interwoven movements for change,” on undertakings and trends which
offer hope that the downward spiral may end. These events are based on
principles of humility, flexibility, and spontaneity benefiting local
long-term users.

The exposition begins with an array of green enterprises in several
countries and of disparate sizes, for all of which the economics are
integrated with ecology. Notwithstanding dangers such as losing control
when a company goes public, the examples of restaurants, forestry
companies, and recycling centres are an exciting mix. The
anti-environmental orientation of contemporary capitalism, the
perversion of the Bretton Woods institutions, and the power of consumer
pressure are well examined, with much excellent analysis of attendant
issues. Succeeding chapters review problems and solutions for
maintaining the integrity of ecosystems, growing food, avoiding
pollution, and managing watersheds, forests, and fisheries. The final
synthesis considers approaches that extend the values informing the
environmental concern to participatory democracy and social justice.

The book covers much terrain, from environmental issues to associated
economic and political ones. The style is conversational and zesty, with
deft use of epigraphs and profiling of such key players as Maude Barlow
and William McDonough. That North America has much to learn from regions
as diverse as Kerala and Europe is clear. The Canadian content is high,
ranging coast to coast from land agreements with the Haida Gaii via
Walkerton and McGill’s School of the Environment to the Sydney tar
ponds. Besides the index and references, there is a useful list of
pertinent organizations. While the dominant theme of the need for new
approaches is always prominent, the details are occasionally flawed, as
when genetically modified organisms and animal diseases or science and
monetary systems are linked too quickly. The “good news” point of
view of the authors is shared by environmentalists like David Bellamy,
but it is surely too early to conclude that the headlong dash to
destruction is about to end.