Customer Reviews

Act Now, Apologize Later

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is an autobio and discussion of the environmental movement and activism by the 24-year-old president of the Sierra Club. Toward the end of the book he includes a meeting he had with a British Columbian Native American group, who criticize the environmental groups out to "save" their forests. The local people say, "It is our turn for environmental development.... You take food from our children's mouths. You're trying to stop us from improving our condition. You are no different from those who tried to kill us with their guns."
Werbach mentions, "I learned an important lesson on the trip. Environmentalists, in a rush to save the natural world, often forget to consider the implications of their actions. Our dedication leads to a self-righteousness that bowls over friends as well as enemies."
Yet his book title, and apparently his philosophy, remains, Act Now, Apologize Later.

Besides lacking substance, the book was poorly written. Apparently the author feels that in order to reach young people, he has to write like one. Someone with an Ivy League education should write at a level higher than that of a high school student. He also writes about people who save the world while he himself does nothing. It seems that people do it for him and he takes credit for by writing a book or by signing checks (as Sierra Club president). The book should be titled: "While I sit back watching...".

Here is a book that, while explicitly asking readers to think for themselves, implicitly tells them not to think at all, but simply to act.
This review will not complain about Mr Werbach's failing to provide a blueprint for action (as the other one-star reviews do), but will demonstrate the true nature of his musings. Incidentally, the man has no intention of apologizing for anything, as his title suggests...
Since every page of this book is replete with the shallow observations of a man who absolutely refuses to think, I hardly know where to begin. He confesses his profound ignorance of the world on the very first page of the introduction. "Oscar the Grouch, a smelly green whiner who lives in a garbage can has been the star of sesame street for years. Yogi Bear, the smiling optimist who believes there's a picnic basket around every corner, was cancelled. It's not cool to be positive."
Mr Werbach, Yogi Bear started in 1958 (long before Oscar was conceived) and went on to outlive the man who was his voice (Haws Butler). It was not CANCELLED as you were so keen to put it; Hanna Barbera retired him in 1988, and the Cartoon Network still runs him daily. The only reason Oscar has a job can be summed up in 6 words: The National Endowment for the Arts. Lets see how long he would last if Sesame Street had to live by the same rules as Hanna Barbera. It is cool to be positive. It's even cooler to be commercially cool. Yogi paid his own way.
Page 25 reveals the nature of Mr Werbach's epistemology through his recount of boyish mischief:
"Kevin believed experiences were the most effective way to offer lessons. He once convinced a student to touch his nose to an electric fence to see if it would sting. It did. Kevin had told the student, 'It's an electric fence, but if you touch it with your nose, you won't get shocked.' The boy hesitated, his common sense telling him the teacher couldn't be right. He protested, 'The fence is gonna shock me no matter what part of my body touches it.' Testing the mettle of the student, Kevin repeated, "You can touch an electric fence with your nose and you won't be shocked.' The student cautiously touched his nose to the fence and was rewarded with a shock. It sounds deviant, but Kevin wanted the student to use his mind, not blindly follow the words of someone claiming to know the answers."
Now. The only thing more deviant than tricking a child into hurting himself is telling him afterward that he was using his own mind in doing so and not blindly following someones words. I seriously doubt that, if Mr Werbach were sitting on a jury that was to judge a woman who had talked her school-aged son into putting his hand on a red-hot burner as a method of discovering the truth for himself, would vote her innocent of child abuse. The circumstances are different only in degree. The message is the same.
I'll bet Mr Werbach blindly follows the global warming theorists without having done the first bit of empirical research on his own. I guess he's afraid of being shocked.

I have to say it's an interesting experience reading a book by someone that they wrote when they were 23 -- almost a decade ago. I read about Werbach in the NYT this month about the deep-think essay he did on the death on environmentalism. I read some of the other reviews that seemed to say that the book was a light read -- which, for me, was a good thing, since if you've read his speech it's very complex, and something lighter was nice.

The book tells a compelling coming of age story, blended with the telling stories of Werbach's experience at the heart of some of the most important environmental battles of his time.

I certainly am looking forward to reading whatever he does next. I hope he turns his speech into a book. Does anyone know him?

I read this book when I was in high school and it changed my life. I recently picked it up again (I'm in my final year of college) and it still holds up. My guess is that a lot of older activists won't get this book -- it's too raw. But it's honest, powerful and well-written. It's a quick, good read. If you've read Werback's recent speech on the death of environmentalism then you can see where he's at today. It's a much thicker read though. The nice thing about Act Now is that it's completely accessible.

mteeter

Man, this book could have been so much better. Adam Werbach is certainly a noteworthy member of the younger generation (of the 90's), around the same age as me. I'm also a member of Sierra Club. Therefore I've always been impressed by this guy, who at a very young age, was able to become president of an established organization with hundreds of thousands of members. Werbach has great innovative insights into environmental philosophy and activism that are true improvements over the old antiquated notions. He's surely a unique thinker with many great ideas. But sadly, he is not a writer by any stretch of the imagination.

All of Werbach's good ideas and efforts are quickly used up early in this book. What remains is an unfocused, scatterbrained hodgepodge of disconnected ideas and points that are not explored. While claiming to write an activist's manual, Werbach merely delivers a list of environmental complaints and "inspirational" stories about local activists, with no surrounding context or big-picture conclusions. He makes up for it with a lot of sarcastic finger-pointing and attention-grubbing polemics. Werbach overloads clichés like "we were building a natural bridge to the future" and adds several short stories that are just squishy kiddie parables, possibly written when he was in grade school. Most laughable is a sketch of a man called Bootsy in the land of Phunk who wanted to be the sun. (The esteemed Mr. Collins deserves an apology.)

There are factual errors galore, like 1990 as the date of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. In Section 3 Werbach decides to organize all the environmentalists of the world into five categories, all with derogatory names - Druids, Polar-Fleecers, Apocalyptics, Eco-Opportunists, and Eco-Entrepreneurs - then weakly encourages all to work together. Werbach's takes on politics and economics are superficial at best. He comes close to major insights in his section on environmentalism and religion, but falls into triviality again. Pass on this book's sad case of arrested development, and wonder what could've been.

While Adam Werbach's book may suggest actions and strategies, it fails to. It gives insight into Adam's "interesting" take on certain campaigns, but leaves the reader dumbfounded how to go about activism. Not worth it.

I heard Mr. Werbach speak on NPR recently and bought the book used. It's interesting to see how his thinking has progressed from when he was 23. I enjoyed reading this book and I bought it for two friends after I was finished. I recommend that readers who enjoy this book should also look for Henry David Thoreau's early works -- this book reminds me of Civil Disobedience.

Adam!

Please tell us HOW we can become an activist like you! Act now, Apologize Later is a great title (which is why you got 2 stars instead of 1), but you just go on and on about what YOU did, but don't give steps HOW you did it. Arrgghhhh.....

Readers looking for a "how-to" of activism need to check out THE FUTURE IS OURS (John W. Bartlett, Ed.), to which Adam contributed a chapter, instead of harping on Adam's book for not providing one. ACT FIRST, APOLOGIZE LATER offers young readers what they need before seeking out the "how-to" -- inspirational success stories, a window into the grueling fun of Adam's own experiences as an activist, and some foundational principles for activism and life -- in an accessible and conversational tone. Simply put, Adam's book gives readers a sense of possibility for themselves and the world. Because it does that, it is invaluable.