Renewal
Berger, John
Renewal RESTORING THE EARTH by John Berger Alfred A. Knopf. 241 pp. $16.95. Books written for the general public on environmental issues tend to be gloomy, even apocalyptic. They are that way for...
...global famine, resource depletion, and a nuclear winter are all obviously worth avoiding, and current trends are not necessarily encouraging...
...Structurally...
...Berger, however, had a different goal here...
...This democratically managed and cohesive community has large open spaces, bicycle paths, passive solar heating, and even its own orchards...
...Biologically...
...Berger believes the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) should be brought back as a Restoration Corps, repairing habitats, controlling erosion, and cleaning up rivers and lakes...
...A California real estate contractor designed and helped build a novel development for families of low and middle income...
...The state of Michigan forced Hooker Chemical Company to seal one million cubic yards of hazardous waste and contaminated soil in a mammoth clay vault...
...The effectiveness of such a corps could be greatly improved by the increased scientific knowledge about restoration that many of the individuals depicted in this book have contributed...
...All of this—and more—represents the bigger restoration picture...
...The people portrayed in this book are not famous, but each has played an important role in restoration...
...John Dernbach (John Dernbach is a Pennsylvania attorney who has written on environmental issues for The Progressive and other publications...
...The stories he tells are varied, but all concern restoration...
...They worked for government agencies or ultimately obtained government help, even if they had to invest years of their lives to do it...
...Ecologists in Wisconsin and Illinois have painstakingly developed techniques to restore the prairies that used to exist throughout the region...
...These and other restoration efforts, Berger writes, depend greatly on the "initiative and determination of individuals," frequently people who start with little experience or resources, and whose grassroots efforts often prompt government action...
...The CCC represents perhaps the greatest restoration agency the nation has ever had...
...In addition to the CCC's works, environmental laws have significantly improved air and water quality over the past two decades...
...As a result, people now fish and canoe in a once-lifeless stream...
...He describes what people across the country have done and are doing to heal our damaged environment...
...Restoration has been going on for decades, and on a larger scale than this book suggests...
...It is, rather, a response to Berger's assertion that the efforts described in this book represent "the beginnings of a national restoration movement...
...This is not to deny the reality of many environmental problems, or the need for more restoration...
...The bigger picture is worth its own book, perhaps a future one for Berger, and probably an even more optimistic one...
...An energetic grandmother in Massachusetts organized her neighbors and prodded government and industry over two decades to clean up the Nashua River...
...They are that way for a reason, of course...
...The eastern forests are making a comeback...
...Government officials admitted that the case was prompted by complaints from local citizens...
...The CCC reclaimed or revegetated millions of acres of land between 1933 and 1943, and employed three million people...
...Berger also includes, under the restoration umbrella, the efforts of some people to develop more livable urban and suburban areas...
...For citizens and citizen groups across the country who are skeptical about their ability to influence government or help solve environmental problems where they live, Restoring the Earth provides a hopeful message, even an inspiring one...
...Each of Berger's stories has another common theme—the ability of the determined individual to make a difference...
...While he writes about individuals, the people he depicts did not act and do not act alone...
...Parts of the old prairie, with more than 100 native species, now bloom again...
...They organized and inspired others, or acted in concert with others...
...John Berger's Restoring the Earth, by contrast, is an optimistic book...
...Functionally...
...Yet Berger mentions the CCC only in the final chapter, and then just briefly...
...Natural-resource restoration," Berger writes, "is a process in which a damaged resource or region is renewed...
Vol. 50 • August 1986 • No. 8
