2030: Confronting Thermageddon In Our Lifetime by Robert Hunter (McClelland & Stewart), 270 pages, $36.99 cloth. Rating: NNNN
Rating: NNNN
Greenpeace co-founder Robert Hunter breaks down the usual boxes by bridging the worlds of environmental activism, journalism and politics. We need more such fusions if we are to meet his challenge of stopping Thermageddon — the final battle between good and evil that could decimate the earth — before the year 2030.Hunter lays out a maverick perspective on green politics. He bemoans the fact that presidential candidate Al Gore, who rescued a series of conferences on international climate change, was abandoned by U.S. environmentalists when the Green party nominated Ralph Nader. He also urges environmental activists to adopt a positive approach to cooperation, along the lines pioneered by the other co-founder of Greenpeace, Paul Watson, who is now directing Ecuador’s navy in its anti-poaching patrols.
Hunter also makes some astonishing revelations about the Soviet Union’s past whaling activities, which were eventually halted largely due to Greenpeace’s spectacular non-violent protests. Soviet whaling was apparently a front for espionage operations against the United States. The whale oil was used in the manufacture of nuclear missiles, and the Soviets misreported the numbers of whales they killed. This junk data damaged international conservation efforts and brought several whale species to the brink of extinction.
Hunter’s book is full of such astonishing facts, and will inform even the most dedicated friends of the earth.
Hunter reads at Word On The Street. See Readings, this page.
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