Customer Reviews

Believing Cassandra: An Optimist Looks at a Pessimist's World

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This is a transcript of key points of my review of BELIEVING CASSANDRA on Vermont Public Radio in October:

Really important books are rare. I've found one...and it's just been published in Vermont...

How often do you read a book that will in some way change you and maybe even change the course of human events? When as a teen, I read GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck, it changed my perception of the world and awoke a social conscience in me.

When as a medical educator I read ON DEATH AND DYING by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, it changed the way I taught and changed the way medicine was practiced all over the world.

EUROPE ON $5 A DAY changed the way Americans traveled. And Rachel Carson's SILENT SPRING changed some of the ways humans relate to their home planet.

Well, I've just finished another book that may alter our relationship with Ma Earth. It's called BELIEVING CASSANDRA: AN OPTIMIST LOOKS AT A PESSIMIST'S WORLD. It was written by Alan AtKisson...

The book is about---do not turn off the radio when you hear this word!---SUTAINABILITY.

But it's not airy-fairy, not doom and gloom, not all charts and graphs. Instead, it makes clear and important distinctions between, for example, growth and development; growth means increases in quantity while development means improvements in quality. And while there are truly limits to growth, AtKisson believes there are no limits to development. That's what makes him an optimist.

BELIEVING CASSANDRA is an unusually readable book. AtKisson has a light touch. (He's also a singer-songwriter and public speaker.) And he spells out, clearly and understandably, what he believes will takes us off the track which we're now on, the one that leads to a horrible crash between humanity and Mother Nature.

He's also got a great eye for finding pieces that fit into the big puzzle. He pulls in everything from global warming to codfishing to A HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY to scurvy.

Scurvy? "Consider the story of scurvy. In 1601 a British Captain General discovered a cure for scurvy, a disease that routinely struck sailing crews on long voyages. We now know that scurvy, which involves an outbreak of large and painful sores, is caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. By giving lemon juice to sailors and observing the results, he found that the juice would alleviate the sores. He duly reported his discovery to the naval authorities and recommended that lemons be kept on board as a remedy. His findings and recommendations were politely ignored."

AtKissons follows the course of the disease and its potential cure. "It was 264 years between the time when the cure was first discovered and the time when any British seaman could go on a long voyage without the fear of the disease. Scurvy's tale is a cautionary one, about the costs to people and society when there are delays in adopting good new ideas."

BELIEVING CASSANDRA is a timely execution of a good idea... This is Jules Older in Albany, Vermont, the Soul of the Kingdom.

Alan AtKisson's Believing Cassandra occupies an incredibly rare space in the sustainable development literature of our time. It unites the scientific with our own individual experience and manages to reach us deeply on a very human level. It is BEYOND important. It is moving. The way AtKisson has managed to weave so seemlessly an endearing prose style (that sings of Douglas Adams' influence among others) with hard science-based facts, abstract theoretical concepts, and the relating experiential vignettes that pull it all together is absolutely stunning. It is a work of art that does not "just sit there." It accomplishes something - inspiring action and hope through an understanding of the past we can all relate to and an innovative framework for the future to take as our lens. For all of that, the author should be very, very proud.

If the book has a flaw, it is that it eventually ends as all things must. In reading it, when I came across a phrase that registered with my intuition, I turned down the corner of the page. The problem came when I realized I was turning down every other page because of the frequency of so many magically potent phrases. Believing Cassandra's size nearly doubled because of all the wonderful words I wanted to keep close to both my head and heart! Kudos to Alan AtKisson for a triumph that will will be in the fore of this reader's mind as he goes out into the world to put the concept of sustainability into practice.

Book of the Year

Our children, our grandchildren, their children and their grandchildren offer a sense of continuity for our efforts, a long term stewardship sensibility which guides our daily choices. We learned this from our parents and their parents, as they tried to offer us a better world than they had as children. Looking ahead three or four decades offers our generation a much more clouded vision of what future generations may have to face. The sheer magnitude of the possible impact of environmental changes defies consideration. The issue is too huge and too important, and our pea-brains deflect in self-defense. We're a crummy little species, but we're all we've got, so we've got to find a way to make the best of it.

In Believing Cassandra, Alan AtKisson offers an realistic analysis of the global situation with upbeat examples of past social change successes and current brilliant pragmatic responses to our species' greatest challenge. This book is cajoling, joyous and entertaining. It is chocolate for the soul, offering a way to consider our future with a constructive attitude. You will laugh, you will understand, and you will start to develop an appetite for the solutions. At the same time, it provides an engagingly fluid and readable explanation of systems theory.

AtKisson, an occasional resident of Seattle, was one of the architects of Sustainable Seattle, which developed a set of indicators for evaluating the sustainability of the choices we are making for our future. You can't use up more than you replace, or the world runs out. Sustainable Seattle has become a template for evaluating the long term impact of environmental and political policies in communities all over the world, and has had a significant effect here at home.

Cassandra, you might recall from Homer, made a deal with Zeus, trading herself for the ability to see the future. She reneged on her part of the deal, but Zeus couldn't withdraw his gift, once given. He got even by confounding her gift with a curse: she would be able to see the future, but nobody would believe her. Thus when she warned the Trojans about the big wooden horse, but they ignored her. We've been ignoring her, too. The planet has a problem, and we are it. Believing Cassandra allows us to look forward to the joys inherent in the solutions.

Believing Cassandra is a book well worth recommending. It is a great introduction to the concept of "sustainability," putting it into terms that are understandable by the average "mainstream" reader. AtKisson clearly states the urgency with which we need to develop sustainable cultures, basing this need on the swiftly deteriorating condition of the earth's ecology and the calamitous consequences that are sure to follow. The author uses some clever analogies, such as comparing sustainability to democracy. Democracy was a new idea at one time, and it was scoffed at by many people. It took centuries to develop and become a workable reality, and it is still far from perfect. Sustainability is another idea whose time has come, but we do not have the luxury of centuries. We are like passengers in an airplane in the clouds, says Atkisson, headed directly into the side of a mountain. Some of the passengers have caught a glimpse of the tragedy lying ahead, but their warnings fall on deaf ears. These "Cassandras" know they must not only convince the other passengers of the danger, but they must also change the course of the airship, and do it all while there is still time. Atkisson's optimistic slant on this scenario may expose many readers to the idea that we can steer a collective course toward a positive future for our species and our planet. If, that is, we begin to act now.

Excellent review of the global warming issue, including history and current aspects, and a good introduction for those new to this concern. Addresses the points raised by those who do not consider this a serious concern. While raising awareness, also points to possible actions individuals can take. Very positive approach to a very serious contemporary issue.

Don't stop, don't even slow down - hit the button right now to add this book to your shopping cart. You'll be glad you did. Once you have read it, be sure to pass it on. It combines a message of urgency with an outlook of hope. It made me cry, but it made me think. Alan AtKisson holds a mirror up to all of us, and makes us look at ourselves. He never indicts us, or judges us, and he shares the blame, the sorrow, and the hope right along with us. He brings a positive message into a gloom and doom movement.

Believing in Cassandra has terrific quotes; the story about how long it took to lick scurvy was fascinating and the central message is hard to argue with.

Here are a couple of editorial observations:

Shooting from the Hip
The book is sprinkled with loose analogies that weaken the author's position. For example, on page 141 AtKisson says people are in a "lemming-like stampede over the cliffs of history." This is a weak analogy because lemmings don't jump off cliffs. What's more, AtKisson missed an opportunity to dig into the possibility that population crashes are a part of nature. According to the Canadian Science Journal, Lemmings don't jump off cliffs and their population increases up to 500 times then crashes to almost nothing as part of a natural cycle. Dr. Charley Krebs figured this out and came up with something called the Krebs Effect or Fence Effect.

Economic Translation
AtKisson doesn't talk much about debt. The US consumer is more in debt than at any time since WWII. Most of the bad, unsustainable consumerism that he talks about is made possible by car loans, home equity loans, cheap mortgages and credit cards. Raising interest rates is very simple way to kill wasteful consumer spending, conserve natural resources -- and keep the world in an economic depression. The Fed could do it tomorrow.

Getting to the Point
AtKisson writes at length about the sustainable lifestyle, but waits until page 173 (Seven Principles of Sustainability) to describe what the lifestyle is.

Unnecessary Paraphrasing
Karl-Henrik Robert's 23rd draft of System Conditions was good enough to send to every household and school in Sweden but for some reason, AtKisson rephrased it for his readers. Surprisingly, when I looked up the actual wording in the footnotes, it turns out to be precise, agreeable and actionable.

Irony and Sarcasm
I don't know why AtKisson closes with a quote from Henry Ford.

I believe in AtKisson's central message. If the book were more tightly written I'd give it more stars.

This book provides good views that make sense and can help you remain engaged in mainstream concerns to understand the audience and how you can better approach them.

On several occasions Alan talks about how people can be resistant to the devastating things they hear, suffering from existential blindness, which is what allows them to go on living.

He also offers explanations to show what can be the best ways to influence others. He writes "People don't change their lives based on data. They change it based on an experience, and intimate contact they have with somebody that they trust." Or later about the resistance to "too much data" and how you need to use people with credibility providing solutions that outweigh whatever additional time, trouble and money are required to make the change.

In short, this book offers great info to the activist and could be complemented with books like The Influencer or Made to Stick.

A brilliant, sensitive, amusing, personal and deeply profound look at the current attitude towards important environmental issues including climate change - it depresses, accuses, relieves, encourages and instills hope in any environmentally aware soul and should provoke a serious response in any 'business as usual' die hard. A brilliant read.

Don't be put off by the cover photo. This is a great overview of the environmental issue. But as opposed to many books by environmental doomsday prophets, this book tells a cautionary tale but also offers hope. It also gives some practical examples of how we can affect change. Although it gets a bit cheesy at times, Attkisson's optimism is refreshing.