Locality and Identity: Environmental Issues in Law and Society Book

There are no Sacred Cows for Sagoff. He brings all the skepticism of a philosopher to bear on the environmental movement. The result is a dismantling of many of its long-held truths, a deep investigation into the relationship between man and nature, and a defense of nature's aesthetic relation to man as its primary value-- one which cannot be translated into dollars (or Willingness To Pay).

Since this book reversed many of my views on the subject and gave me plenty of food for thought, I have to recommend it to everyone, particularly environmentalists, conservationists and leftists. All such folks (particularly the latter) are likely to greet a text like this with suspicion. Be as suspicious as you like: you'll find nothing but good reasoning and wide reading in Sagoff's writing. If some of what we hold to be true on the topic is not, then it's time to modify our position to be as effective as possible.

Most of all, I recommend this text to anyone who languishes in misery at a future of impending ecological collapse, overpopulation or resource exhaustion. There is none of that stupid ad hoc optimism we so often see justifying the status quo in this book. There is rather a healthy, honest introspection on what's really going on. All the better if you should feel a little less miserable upon figuring that out.