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A multilayered memoir of a life well lived, told in words that are informative, entertaining, funny, and truly inspiring. In A Diplomat in Environmentalist's Clothing, Ray Robinson relates how, as Canada's youngest diplomat, he rose to become, arguably, his country's most influential environmental official, serving throughout the first two decades of the contemporary environmental era. Robinson's account also details his central role in cleaning up the Great Lakes, battling acid rain, getting lead out of gasoline, and writing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The book is also a romantic, though sometimes troubled, personal tale. The illegitimate descendant of an aristocratic family with a thousand-year history, Robinson nearly died at birth in London, England, before being taken as an infant to be raised by his single mother on Canada's West Coast. Adventures abound, including facing the feared Soviet KGB, evading murderous attacks in a South American jungle, saving the life of a Canadian correspondent, and helping transform a very poor Bogota neighbourhood. After an unprecedented Parliamentary send-off, Robinson left for Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1991. Only fifty-four, he chose to end his Ottawa career and give full-time care to his wife, Ardith. Woven throughout this book are his experiences of a home life that has been dominated for nearly half a century by a battle with family schizophrenia, and more recently Alzheimer's, which tested the marital vow of "in sickness and in health" almost beyond the limit. A series of crises in far-off New Zealand forty-five years ago led to a dramatic spiritual transformation that enabled him and his wife to fulfill that vow and recently celebrate fifty-five years of marriage. Robinson also provides: constructive comment on the inside workings of Canada's Government and Parliament, with many anecdotes of working up close with fourteen different Cabinet ministers; insightful comparisons between Canada and the U.S., based on his many visits to Washington, DC, in an official capacity; informed commentary on some of the most important events of the last half of the twentieth century: the harsh realities of the NATO/Soviet Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, and, spilling into this century, the always daunting impediments to peace in the Middle East.
In 1964–65, an international team of thirty-eight scientists and assistants, led by Montreal physician Stanley Skoryna, sailed to the mysterious Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to conduct an unprecedented survey of its biosphere. Born of Cold War concerns about pollution, overpopulation, and conflict, and initially conceived as the first of two trips, the project was designed to document the island's status before a proposed airport would link the one thousand people living in humanity's remotest community to the rest of the world – its germs, genes, culture, and economy. Based on archival papers, diaries, photographs, and interviews with nearly twenty members of the original team, Stanley's Dream sets the expedition in its global context within the early days of ecological research and the understudied International Biological Program. Jacalyn Duffin traces the origins, the voyage, the often-complicated life within the constructed camp, the scientific preoccupations, the role of women, the resultant reports, films, and publications, and the previously unrecognized accomplishments of the project, including a goodwill tour of South America, the delivery of vaccines, and the discovery of a wonder drug. For Rapa Nui, the expedition coincided with its rebellion against the colonizing Chilean military, resulting in its first democratic election. For Canada, it reflected national optimism as the country prepared for its centennial and adopted its own flag. Ending with Duffin's own journey to the island to uncover the legacy of the study and the impact of the airport, and to elicit local memories, Stanley's Dream is an entertaining and poignant account of a long-forgotten but important Canadian-led international expedition.
The political environmentalism of the past 35 years was born of necessity: business as usual was not protecting the air, water and land. Brent Haglund and Thomas Still believe that the regulatory actions of the 1960s and 1970s were essential medicine for a careless society. But over time, the cure became something of a disease itself, a command-and-control system that widened the gulf between people and the natural world they live in. Writing for those who want to move past the environmental nanny state and reach the next level of stewardship, Haglund and Still describe a civic environmentalism based on local control, personal responsibility, government accountability and economic opportunity. They offer success stories demonstrating that civic environmentalism works. In Louisiana, private landowners formed the Black Bear Conservation Committee to restore the black bear from near extinction while avoiding an endangered species designation that would have constricted property rights. In Arizona, the White Mountain Apache tribe uses income from hunting licenses to fund an innovative wildlife management program that fosters economic development. In Wisconsin, the last dam was removed from the Baraboo River after the River Alliance brought landowners and governmental agencies together to promote change without polarizing lawsuits. HANDS-ON ENVIRONMENTALISM shows how to find voluntary, enduring solutions to environmental problems apart from heavy-handed governmental intervention.
A former New York Times environmental reporter evaluates cooperative global efforts for environmentally sustainable economic development.
What does it mean for the future of the planet when one of the world’s most durable authoritarian governance systems pursues “ecological civilization”? Despite its staggering pollution and colossal appetite for resources, China exemplifies a model of state-led environmentalism which concentrates decisive political, economic, and epistemic power under centralized leadership. On the face of it, China seems to embody hope for a radical new approach to environmental governance. In this thought-provoking book, Yifei Li and Judith Shapiro probe the concrete mechanisms of China’s coercive environmentalism to show how ‘going green’ helps the state to further other agendas such as citizen surveillance and geopolitical influence. Through top-down initiatives, regulations, and campaigns to mitigate pollution and environmental degradation, the Chinese authorities also promote control over the behavior of individuals and enterprises, pacification of borderlands, and expansion of Chinese power and influence along the Belt and Road and even into the global commons. Given the limited time that remains to mitigate climate change and protect millions of species from extinction, we need to consider whether a green authoritarianism can show us the way. This book explores both its promises and risks.
Presents twenty-eight articles debating issues related to the environment, discussing the extent of the environmental crisis, the effects of conservation on the economy, and what steps should be taken to protect the earth.