No Turning Back: Dismantling the Fantasies of Environmental Thinking

No Turning Back is the story of how the environmental movement displaced a conservation movement’s century of success with a crisis strategy to change not only government policy but also American culture. Kaufman finds the movement’s conception in the revolt of European and English romantics against both the rational mind of science and the Industrial Revolution. He traces the sparks of that movement to America, where it was nourished by Henry David Thoreau, still the writer most widely quoted by environmentalists. While Thoreau declared that "in Wilderness is the preservation of the world," this book demonstrates the exact opposite: in civilization is preservation of wilderness. Kaufman depicts an environmental movement crippled by its own fantasies and outlines a plan for building on the strengths of Western technology and culture to save the planet. To suggest that human beings can survive and thrive by rejecting precisely what makes them unique—namely, reason, planning, and inventiveness—is a recipe for disaster, Kaufman writes. By debunking well-known environmental experts, No Turning Back generates much debate.