The Environmentalist Dilemma: Promise and Peril in an Age of Climate Crisis

(Paperback)

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In The Environmentalist's Dilemma, award-winning journalist Arno Kopecky zeroes in on the core predicament of our times: the planet may be dying, but humanity's doing better than ever.

To acknowledge both sides of this paradox is to enter a realm of difficult decisions: Should we take down the government, or try to change it from the inside Is it okay to compare climate change to Hitler Is hope naive or indispensable How do you tackle collective delusion Should we still have kids And can we take them to Disneyland Inquisitive and relatable, Kopecky strikes a rare note of optimistic realism as he guides us through the moral minefields of our polarised world.

From start to finish, The Environmentalists Dilemma returns to the central question: How should we engage with the story of our times

Reviews

"The Environmentalist's Dilemma is far funnier than a book contemplating apocalypse ought to be, and Arno Kopecky is far wiser than a journalist just hitting middle age ought to be. Every sentence in here is perfect. Every new page opens your mind a little more, until you're contemplating American tribalism or Extinction Rebellion or the nature of truth or the velocity of time. As a reader, I'd follow Kopecky anywhere. Even -- just this once -- to Disneyland." -- McKenzie Funk, the PEN Literary Award-winning author of Windfall
"Should one enjoy reading about the climate emergency That's the dilemma I faced reading Arno Kopecky's earnest, nuanced, and funny new book. From the quagmire of Canadian petropolitics to COVID-19's impact on the environmental movement, Kopecky captures the current moment of whiplash and dysfunction perfectly. The Environmentalist's Dilemma unpacks the most worrying issues plaguing the environmental movement while setting out a way forward for the difficult days ahead." -- Laura Tretheway, author of The Imperilled Ocean
"Startling, wise, and insightful, The Environmentalist's Dilemma goes into the fraught relationship between nature and civilization. With his wide experience, well-stocked mind, and the fun and deftness of his writing, Kopecky helps us face the threats that face our world." -- Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress
"The expansiveness of the dilemma that frames these essays -- the world is dying yet human life seems by many metrics to be better than ever -- allows Kopecky to write with unfailing verve on a vast array of topics ... these essays are consistently stimulating and often moving, sometimes deeply so ... In the author's hands, the book's titular dilemma emerges in all its richness, ambiguity, and tension as a foundational opportunity and challenge for contemporary environmentalism." -- Literary Review of Canada
"Timely and relevant, this offers plenty to think about." -- Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Arno Kopecky is an environmental journalist and author whose dispatches from four continents have appeared in the Globe and Mail, The Walrus, the Literary Review of Canada, Reader's Digest, and others. His last book, The Oil Man and the Sea, chronicled the battle to keep oil tankers out of British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest and was shortlisted for the 2014 Governor General's Award. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.