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BEEN BROWN SO LONG ITLOOKED destruction from nuclear testing, chemical LIKE GREEN TO ME weapons and hazardous waste. by Jeffrey St Clair There's so much more in this book, but Common Courage Press, USA, 2004 we're left with the overwhelming impression ISBN 1-56751-258-5 (407pp tpb) that we must become much more politically Availability: Common Courage Press, active if we're going to put a stop to all this orders-info@commoncouragepress.com, governmental and corporate carelessness http://www.commoncouragepress.com and greed. Top marks to St Clair! outed as "the most radical environmental writer in America", Jeffrey St Clair is TRANSFORMING THE GLOBAL scathing in his review of the state of the BIOSPHERE environment and how our natural world has _ by Elliott Maynard, PhD been ravaged by corporate marauders, cor- Arcos Cielos Research Center, USA, 2003 rupt politicians, apathetic bureaucrats and ISBN 0-9721713-1-2 (310pp hc) the complicit corporate media. Availability: Arcos Cielos Research The mostly US-centric articles compiled : i for this book were written between 1995 and Center, hitp:/www arcoscielos.com ata 2003, and St Clair sets the scene in his intro- . . Oy : ” crossroads with global environmental, duction. ine Map i Now The aemitery of social and economic crises. We need practi- wi vont e of ar beadl " See inthe cal new strategies for sanity and sustainabili- Pa a ty, as Elliot Maynard, PhD, proposes in Cascades region of Oregon, near where he : . vo and his family moved it 1990. It's not just Transfe nd why the Globat Biosp mere. Pt the landscape that's been destroyed; entire oceanography, ecology a ye onscio asnese ecosystems have been wiped out. research, co-founded in 1978 (with his wife, Sharon) the Arcos Cielos Research Center in Sedona, Arizona, as a non-profit centre for developing new paradigms in science, edu- cation, ecology and human potential. Dr Maynard argues for a "transformative revolution on a global scale", one that requires new ways of thinking and living. He says we must change our ways to live within "an inspired and self-imposed global constitution of sustainable limits" at all lev- els of society. He discusses 12 "metastrate- gies" for achieving this, e.g., via a transfor- mative education system, a sustainable glob- al resource management plan, enlightened population management, a global shift to Meantime, the grassroots environmental clean, renewable energy, a global "green groups "couldn't survive the Clinton ice age" _ revolution", and new global programs for and by the mid-1990s mainstream environ- waste reduction, treatment and recycling. mentalism became tongue-tied by founda- While he points out the massive problems in tion grants. The situation has deteriorated these areas around the world, he has plenty ever since, as he documents in his chapter of ideas for how to solve them. on the Bush Administration and its anti- Other strategies are: establishing guide- environment agenda. Yet there's still reason _ ines for sustainable human ecologies to be optimistic, and St Clair praises a long (including "slow cities"), providing clean, list of activists prepared to shake things up. energy-efficient global transportation sys- The Wild Matters section highlights how tems, shifting from consumption-driven to compromised the natural world has become, —_ ecologically appropriate lifestyles, changing the article on "Oceans without Fish" being from a meat-based to a protein-based diet, just one shocking exposé. Toxic Nation — creating and distributing "superfoods" like looks at, for example, how the huge chemi- spirulina, and applying the new "conscious- cal corporations like Monsanto want us to eat a diet of dioxins, and Power Plays con- siders the havoc wreaked by oil companies in Alaska, among other tales of environmen- tal rape and pillage. On Native Ground deplores how Native Americans continue to be ripped off by stupid white men's agendas, and The Military Menace shows the eco- ness technology" for cultural transformation. This is all a huge order, especially consid- ering the forces that want to maintain the status quo, but new strategies are essential if we and our world are going to survive and prosper in the future. Dr Maynard has much to offer in the debate and makes us realise how much we take for granted. APRIL — MAY 2004 NEXUS +71 www.nexusmagazine.com