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Richard's Reviews > Ecotopia
Ecotopia
by
by
This is one of the most important books ever written -- no joke. Callenbach, writing in the early-mid 1970s, imagines that Washington, Oregon, and Northern California have seceded from the Union to form Ecotopia, a new nation based on "stable-state" (today, we call it "sustainable") practices in manufacturing, agriculture, construction, transportation -- the whole gamut.
Some of Callenbach's ideas are dated, and feel like they should have been -- and were -- left behind in the 70s. This is a novel, but its structure is a gimmick, really. The protagonist is Will Weston, a reporter for the New York Times-Post who is the first American to travel to Ecotopia, nineteen years after secession. Half the chapters are his formal reports for the newspaper, the other half -- in italics -- are his personal journals.
The formal reports lay out how the society runs -- this is the more important stuff in the novel. The journals cover Weston's inner conflict -- he is very skeptical of the whole thing, but the lumberjack girl with the "animal" sexuality, well, she breaks that down a bit. These chapters sometimes devolve into puerile hippie sex fantasy. This isn't just an ecological utopia, but the Full Berkeley -- free love, ganjaburning on the high-speed mag-lev train from Tahoe to SF (suck it, Bobby Jindal!), even a 1:1 nurse-patient ratio in hospitals, complete with happy ending.
Much of what's here we take for granted today, at least in San Francisco -- sorted recycling bins (check), biodegradable plastics (check), round-the-bay electric rail link (check), female political leadership (Boxer -- check! Feinstein -- check! Pelosi -- check!) legal marijuana and a Market Street closed to cars and replanted with trees (coming soon!)
What's so incredible is that I last taught this book maybe in 2002 -- and much, much more of reality has aligned with Callenbach's vision since.
Ecotopia is, for environmentalists, what Star Trek has been to physicists and astronomers and astronauts since just a few years earlier -- the map that points the way to the next frontier.
Read it, and read Obama's recent joint address to Congress. Start at "it begins with energy" on page 3 of the NYT transcript, linked below:
Ratings: five stars for the vision, three for the fiction.
Some of Callenbach's ideas are dated, and feel like they should have been -- and were -- left behind in the 70s. This is a novel, but its structure is a gimmick, really. The protagonist is Will Weston, a reporter for the New York Times-Post who is the first American to travel to Ecotopia, nineteen years after secession. Half the chapters are his formal reports for the newspaper, the other half -- in italics -- are his personal journals.
The formal reports lay out how the society runs -- this is the more important stuff in the novel. The journals cover Weston's inner conflict -- he is very skeptical of the whole thing, but the lumberjack girl with the "animal" sexuality, well, she breaks that down a bit. These chapters sometimes devolve into puerile hippie sex fantasy. This isn't just an ecological utopia, but the Full Berkeley -- free love, ganjaburning on the high-speed mag-lev train from Tahoe to SF (suck it, Bobby Jindal!), even a 1:1 nurse-patient ratio in hospitals, complete with happy ending.
Much of what's here we take for granted today, at least in San Francisco -- sorted recycling bins (check), biodegradable plastics (check), round-the-bay electric rail link (check), female political leadership (Boxer -- check! Feinstein -- check! Pelosi -- check!) legal marijuana and a Market Street closed to cars and replanted with trees (coming soon!)
What's so incredible is that I last taught this book maybe in 2002 -- and much, much more of reality has aligned with Callenbach's vision since.
Ecotopia is, for environmentalists, what Star Trek has been to physicists and astronomers and astronauts since just a few years earlier -- the map that points the way to the next frontier.
Read it, and read Obama's recent joint address to Congress. Start at "it begins with energy" on page 3 of the NYT transcript, linked below:
Ratings: five stars for the vision, three for the fiction.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
February 1, 2009
–
Finished Reading
March 9, 2009
– Shelved
