Fight for the Bay: Why a Dark Green Environmental Awakening is Needed to Save the Chesapeake Bay

(Paperback)

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In this important new book on the declining health of one of America's leading environmental treasures, Howard Ernst reveals a Chesapeake bay that has become functionally dead. He argues that the Chesapeake Bay succumbed to a 'light green' environmental movement that has too often adopted a philosophy of compromise over confrontation and that has fueling a 'political dead zone' where political leaders posture but fail to make the hard decisions needed to achieve real improvement in the Bay's health. While blunt in his evaluation of past and present failures to restore the Bay, Ernst believes that there is still time to turn the restoration effort around and sets out new 'dark green' strategies to do so. In the concluding chapter, five long-time bay activists provide first-person accounts of their battles and hopes for the future. Hailed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as 'a must read for anyone concerned about environmental protection,' this challenging book provides a wake-up call for everyone concerned about the future of the Chesapeake Bay and other ecological treasures through out America.

Reviews

Ernst is devoted to elucidating both obvious and subtle aspects of the catastrophic transformation of the Chesapeake Bay from a vast, fecund 'ecological treasure' into a dead zone, first in Chesapeake Bay Blues (2003), and now in this eye-opening inquiry into the failure to restore the Bay, in spite of the spawning of 600-plus environmental groups and the allocation of huge amounts of money. . . . Ernsts incisive and thought-provoking study pinpoints the sticking points holding up environmental progress and offers a dos-and-donts primer to effective action. * Booklist *
Howard Ernst has done it again, creating a stunning mosaic of politics, policy, and the environment. Nobody writes about environmental politics with more clarity or understanding than Ernst..... -- Dr. Larry Sabato, University of Virginia
Like Paul Revere, Howard Ernst calls us to armsto rescue our birthright to a clean environment. Our great waterways are 'functionally dead,' he warns, maimed by 'raw greed, political hypocrisy' and well-intentioned but weak-kneed environmentalists. It is time, Ernst declares, to mount a 'dark green' revolution against our 'political dead zone' and reclaim our birthright. And he points the way. -- Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award-winning journalist, correspondent, and producer of Poisoned Waters
I read with special interest the chapter on environmental journalism, which describes with accuracy and wisdom the dangerous decline of reporting in this area. It's clearly a major reason why progress is so halting and slow when it happens at all. -- Bill McKibben, Founder of Third Act and author of The Flag, The Cross and The Station Wagon
Ernst is back with a new book, called Fight for the Bay , striking out in some new directions with sharpening important insights that have turned out to be true. . . . Ernst plows new ground in tackling a fact many Americans haven't yet realized: The decline of newspaper investigative reporting will affect their lives, their well-being, and their environment. * Bay Weekly *
Professor Ernst's new conceptthe political dead zonewill change the way people think about environmental politics. This book is a must-read for anyone concerned with environmental protection. -- Robert F. Kennedy Jr., author of Crimes Against Nature

Howard Ernst has done it again, creating a stunning mosaic of politics, policy, and the environment. Nobody writes about
environmental politics with more clarity or understanding than Ernst.