Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays

This is a collection of essays, mostly also published over the last 10 years in magazines and newspapers, in which Paul Kingsnorth critiques assumptions at the heart of 21st century environmentalism ( it still treats the planet as a commodity, with “resources” to be exploited, it assumes “progress” or more technology will solve many of our problems, it thinks of humans as separate from nature). Although it's tempting to say he has given up on environmentalism, and the title of this book encourages that idea, he hasn't gone out to buy a gas guzzling SUV and build a McMansion in Ireland where he lives. These essays are making the case for a quieter, more personal approach to the problem of how to live in a world where environmental degradation is speeding up all the time, and while we pay lip service to “sustainability,” we have mass extinctions and other signs of environmental collapse.

It IS safe to say Kingsnorth has given up the idea of saving the world, so the question he addresses with these essays is what to do instead. His process of coming to answers is thought provoking, imaginative, original. Reading this work has helped me clarify why I have not felt enthused about all the “sustainable” products now available in stores and the more mainstream status of the “green” movement.

I recommend Kingsnorth's writing to everyone, and it's especially convenient to have these essays collected together in one volume. I was happy to see the book also includes Uncivilisation, a manifesto from 2009, which announced the beginning of the Dark Mountain Project, an effort to create new stories for our time of collapse.