LEARNING TO LISTEN TO THE LAND, ...

LEARNING TO LISTEN TO THE LAND, edited by Bill Willers (Island Press: $14.95). The late Edward Abbey set the tone for this challenging volume on ecology in his 1988 book, “One Life at a Time, Please”: “It should be clear to everyone by now that crude numerical growth does not solve our chronic problems of unemployment, welfare, crime, traffic, filth, noise, squalor, the pollution of our air, the poisoning of our water, the corruption of our politics, the debasement of the school system (hardly worthy of the name ‘education’), and the general loss of popular control over the political process--where money, not people, is now the determining factor.” This cogent collection of articles is divided into three sections: The first explains the basic principles of ecology and biodiversity, and documents the unprecedented, ongoing destruction of Earth’s flora and fauna. A chilling but conservative estimate by E. O. Wilson indicates that 17,500 species of animals and plants are being exterminated every year. The second section focuses on the inherent impossibility of the popular belief in endless economic expansion, and the problems arising from unchecked human population growth. The authors in the third section present the benefits of more rational, balanced policies concerning ecology and industrialization. In his singularly eloquent essay, “An Iroquois Perspective,” Oren Lyons proposes that world leaders adopt his tribe’s approach of ensuring that “every decision that we make relates to the welfare and well-being of the seventh generation to come. . . .”