Green Group discussion

Here's the thread for your thoughts and comments on Ecotopia, be warned this will contain spoilers!!!

This book portrays a future ecologically sustainable society, located in what was formerly the states of Washington, Oregon, and northern California. It is a hopeful vision of what industrial society must become if it is to survive, presented in news-story and diary entry forms and a love story with a happy ending. This book goes to show that it is possible to live sustainably although some of the ideas portrayed may not be to everyones tastes. In the very least it can inspire people to go out and try to make a difference to how they live in order to reduce their impact on the planet.

I read this book back in 1990 or so. As Sam notes, it certainly goes about its story in a different way. It is written from the point of view of a journalist on assignment to write about this ecotopian society while he is immersed in it. The combination of news-story and journal entries I think just broke the continuity too much for me. Also, at times, it is a little "out there." :) Who knows, perhaps if I picked it up now, when sustainability is more in the news, I would view it differently. It is too fuzzy now over the time to be able properly assess it fresh without reading it again. Sadly, my recollection of it from back then, combined with my current time constraints (I am a slow reader, so that does not help), will likely keep me from doing so.

Thanks for your view Mike, I did take a little bit of time to get used to the switching between news-story and journal entry but I did find that the change between italics and plain text helped and once I got used to it, I found it interesting to see the difference between his articles and his journal. I agree it was also a bit out there but I think that may have been partly the point, to go to the extreme and get people to think and take some of the principles of Ecotopia rather than the actualities of it...maybe. What do you think? I keep meaning to re-read it to, got to find it first though, think it's hiding somewhere in my room at my parents though lol

Good thing to look at Sam! When I read it in '90, I did not even think to compare the two writing styles, what was said in one version and either not said or said differently in the other version. That would make for an interesting comparison. Do you recall if the two versions started out more equal, and then later became different as the narrator changed his personal way of thinking about things? You also make a fine point on the "out there" aspect being meant more to express the need for a major change in how we do things, rather than really a specific "this is how we should be doing things" stance.

If my memory serves me right (which I hope it does) the two did start out with similar views but then they began to diverge as he accepted the Ecotopia lifestyle in his journal writings but kept his news writing more reserved. I always assumed this was either to keep his 'readers' interested without scaring them away by being too extreme or due to his editors playing around with them (can't remember if his news bits were edited versions of what he sent back). Definitely going to dig out my copy and have another look at it. It does make you wonder a bit how many reporters actually put their full views into their articles though, especially on environmental issues.

Yea I think Callenbach was trying to say 'look we need to do something major, it could be this or it could be a bit of this but just something'. But then that is just my interpretation and I could be way off, but it's a better way of thinking about it and raising some very interesting questions, especially about the environmental middle ground and whether it really is possible to achieve.