1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910162714403321

Autore

Freyfogle Eric T.

Titolo

A Good That Transcends : How US Culture Undermines Environmental Reform / / Eric T. Freyfogle

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Chicago : , : University of Chicago Press, , [2017]

©2017

ISBN

0-226-32625-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource

Disciplina

304.280973

Soggetti

Environmental degradation - Social aspects - United States

Environmentalism - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Previously issued in print: 2017.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Introduction -- ONE. Leopold's Last Talk -- TWO. The Love of Wendell Berry -- THREE. Impressionism and David Orr -- FOUR. The Cosmos and Pope Francis -- FIVE. Taking Property Seriously -- SIX. Wilderness and Culture -- SEVEN. Naming the Tragedy -- CONCLUSION. Thinking, Talking, and Culture -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Since the birth of the modern environmental movement in the 1970s, the United States has witnessed dramatic shifts in social equality, ecological viewpoints, and environmental policy. With these changes has also come an increased popular resistance to environmental reform, but, as Eric T. Freyfogle reveals in this book, that resistance has far deeper roots. Calling upon key environmental voices from the past and present-including Aldo Leopold, Wendell Berry, David Orr, and even Pope Francis in his Encyclical-and exploring core concepts like wilderness and the tragedy of the commons, A Good That Transcends not only unearths the causes of our embedded culture of resistance, but also offers a path forward to true, lasting environmental initiatives. A lawyer by training, with expertise in property rights, Freyfogle uses his legal knowledge to demonstrate that bad land use practices are rooted in the way in which we see the natural world, value it, and understand our place within it. While social and economic factors are important components of our current predicament, it is our culture, he



shows, that is driving the reform crisis-and in the face of accelerating environmental change, a change in culture is vital. Drawing upon a diverse array of disciplines from history and philosophy to the life sciences, economics, and literature, Freyfogle seeks better ways for humans to live in nature, helping us to rethink our relationship with the land and craft a new conservation ethic. By confronting our ongoing resistance to reform as well as pointing the way toward a common good, A Good That Transcends enables us to see how we might rise above institutional and cultural challenges, look at environmental problems, appreciate their severity, and both support and participate in reform.