Colin Doyle

Here are three authors I have found to be very insightful regarding the global ecological threat (not so much the nuclear threat).

First off is Daniel Quinn, whom I credit with opening with my eyes more than any other due to the ideas presented in his landmark novel Ishmael. The ideas run counter to those of our culture, and that is why they are so powerful. Quinn takes a common sense approach to lifestyles and cultural worldviews that either work well or don’t, and steps outside of our ingrained cultural mentality to make straightforward and accurate evaluations. Quinn’s contribution is as much in his method – independent thought free of cultural blinders – as his findings. A great example is his essay “The New Renaissance,” an examination of how our skewed perception of the natural world leads us to destroy it. Quinn has also written a number of valuable sequels to Ishmael. You can learn more at www.ishmael.com.

A second author definitely worth reading is Derrick Jensen. Whereas Daniel Quinn generally takes a cerebral approach to this global crisis, Jensen fully incorporates and emotional and experiential. His graphic novel As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial incorporates many angles on environmental harm, from people who mistakenly think recycling will solve everything to overly passive spiritualists, and rallies the angered reader to action. This book hits as hard per minute invested as just about anything on the market. Jensen then takes a very different approach in How Shall I Live My Life?, informally interviewing ten varied experts from different arenas within the ‘environmental’ movement, their insights together peppering the target of changed relationship with the rest of the natural world.

A third author to pursue is Jared Diamond, who uses studies of past societies to indirectly illuminate our own self-made liabilities. His Guns, Germs, and Steel is a factual history of the last 10,000 years that Daniel Quinn lays out in broad strokes in Ishmael. Diamond’s Collapse examines case studies of societies around the world that crumbled due in part or whole to their impact on the local environment. Also considering relations with neighbors, natural climate change, and political/religious responses to sustenance challenges, Diamond lays out a clear template of how any society can undermine itself or choose to survive indefinitely. The lessons learned from this are patently applicable to the fragile human world of today.

What matters most now are ideas that work. Sources of them come and go, but it will be notions acted upon by millions that may rescue us from ourselves. In the global bazaar of ideas and knowledge, Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jensen, and Jared Diamond are essential vendors. For readers seeking astute and relevant writings regarding our current and past relation to the natural world, these three are nearly sure to inform, guide, and embolden.

Colin Doyle draws on a broad palette of experiences from his three decades, including receiving degrees in anthropology and religion from fine universities and living for a time in seven U.S. states, West and Southern Africa, Europe, and indigenous South America. He now teaches outdoor science in the mountains of Southern California during the school year and leads backpacking trips with teenagers in New Hampshire during the summer. He can be reached at cbdoyl@hotmail.com.

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