Product Overview
Environmentalmovements have produced some impressive results, including cleaner air and the preservationof selected species and places.Butmovementsthat challenged western prosperity and comfortseldom made much progress, and many radicalenvironmentalistshave been unabashed utopianists.
In this short guide, Peterson del Mar untangles this paradox by showing how prosperity is essential to environmentalism. Industrialisationmade conservation sensible, butalso drove peopleto look for meaning in nature even as they consumed its products more relentlessly. Hence Englandled the way in both manufacturing and preserving its countryside, and the United Statescreated a matchless set of national parksas it becamethe world's pre-eminent economic and militarypower. Environmentalismconsiders both the conservation and preservation movements and less organized forms of nature loving (from seaside vacations to ecotourism) to argue that these activities have commonlydistracted us from the hard work of creating a sustainable and sensible relationship with the environment.
