Rating: 
Summary: Environmental politics for the strong at heart
Review: Jeffrey St. Clair is best writer on environmental politics in the U.S. This book solidifies his place as one of the natural world's most important champions in an age of shameful betrayals, disastrous compromises and naked assault against the public interest. He combines keen intellect, relentless investigative skill, extraordinary political insight and the courage to see the worst for what it is without losing heart. Every page is animated by an unequaled love of nature that simply will not let St. Clair abandon himself to despair, even though he produces significant evidence that the situation is far worse than most of us have yet realized. Fortunately, this is one fighter who won't quit and whose vigilance will inspire anyone who reads this book. Here you will find heroes who literally gave their lives to save the last old growth forests, traitors who sold out the environmental movement, politicians in bed with polluters, and ordinary people holding the line against corporate greed. My first thought on reading this book is that I want my sons to have it. If you buy one book about the environmental movement and what has become of it and what it might yet become, let it be this one. If reading St. Clair doesn't make you want to take a stand, I don't know what will.
Rating:
Summary: If You Thought Clinton Was Green, Think Again
Review: This book was full of welcome surprises. (...) But this book describes in gripping detail another war, a war against the planet. It's an uncompromising assessment of the forces, political and economic, pushing the plunder. First, it's girth. This is a big book, but a fast, if at times disturbing, read. It covers a lot of ground from the
rise of corporate-friendly environmentalism under Clinton to (...), from the plight
of Native Americans (...) to the annihilation of the fisheries of the Pacific
Ocean. It singles out the US military as one of the world's biggest polluters, journeying to Alaska (where an atom
test cracked the crust of the earth) to the swamps of South Carolina (where the Air Force lost an H-Bomb...yes, it's
still missing). Second, the book plays no favorites. St. Clair, almost alone among environmental journalists, exposes
the hollow core of the Clinton/Gore team, charting in grim detail each gift to oil companies (24 million acres in the
Arctic), mining companies (millions to Noranda and Phelps Dodge), big timber (restarting logging of ancient forests),
real estate developers (clearing the way for subdivisions in endangered species habitat) and the sugar barons of south
Florida (yet more incursions into the Everglades). He also unveils the complicity of the big green environmental
groups, who reveal themselves to be beholden to the Democratic Party and obedient to the small group of foundations
(largely former oil industry fortunes, Pew, Rockefeller, W. Alton Jones) that set the timid agenda for the movement.
The story is unsettling, but the read is redeemed by St. Clair's deep love for the Earth, it's wild places and
creatures, and the new grassroots movement that has emerged as the planets frontline defenders.
Rating:
Summary: St. Clair is the Seymour Hersh of Environmental Journalism
Review: This is simply the best book on environmental politics ever written. Many so-called environmentalists believe it is only the Republicans that rape our natural resources. Mainstream environmental groups like the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters, hardly ever reward Republicans with high marks -- so the Democrats must be more apt at protecting nature they tell us. St. Clair debunks this myth with an engaging lucid style, that makes me wonder if Edward Abbey has been reincarnated as a journalist. However, this book is not only for environmentalists, it is a must read for anybody who has ever been on a hike or driven a car past a clear cut, and wondered "how and why did this happen?" This collection will be for the environment, what Fast Food Nation has been for our food culture. It is a remarkably smart, well researched prose, unlike any other I've ever laid eyes upon. St. Clair knows his stuff, and we are all so lucky to have him share it with us. This is a must own for anybody that has ever claimed to love the outdoors or politics. "Been Brown so Long.. " is a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Chainsaw massacres
Review: This is simply the best, most radical, take on environmental politics ever written.
Many so-called environmentalists believe it is only the Republicans that rape our natural resources. Mainstream environmental groups like the Sierra Club, and the League of Conservation Voters, hardly ever reward Republicans with high marks -- so the Democrats must be more apt at protecting nature they tell us.
St. Clair debunks this myth with an engaging lucid style, that makes me wonder if Edward Abbey has been reincarnated as a journalist.
However, this book is not only for environmentalists, it is a must read for anybody who has ever been on a hike or driven a car past a clear cut, and wondered "how and why did this happen?"
This collection should be for the environment, what Fast Food Nation has been for our food culture. It is a remarkably smart, well researched collection of essays. St. Clair knows his stuff, and we are all so lucky to have him share it with us. This is a must own for anybody that has ever claimed to love the outdoors or politics. "Been Brown so Long.. " is a masterpiece.
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