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Born Under a Bad Sky: Notes from the Dark Side of the Earth (Counterpunch)

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Jeffrey St. Clair is a sane voice in a chaotic, cruel world.

The most articulate, passionate writer covering environmental issues in America today, no other author matches St. Clair's deep understanding of our noxious political landscape, nor his unwavering commitment to preserving what's left of the embattled American West. He's been in the muddy trenches for decades, covering the savage forest battles of the Pacific Northwest as editor of Forest Watch and the eminent Wild Forest Review, and his wisdom shines herein.

This latest collection of reports from the frontlines should be atop the reading lists of all who want to understand what it is going to take to push the environmental movement forward, when the fate of our little blue planet seems to be sinking, with the barons of industry drunk at the helm.

Most of the book is made up of hard-hitting articles regarding the destruction of the environment and exposes of those determined to continue that destruction. Many, if not all of them have appeared in print before. The jewel of the book lies in the last 116 pages of narrative. Titled "The Beautiful and the Damned," this section is St. Clair's beautifully rendered tale of a trip down some of the US West's best known rivers. A poetic offering to the river gods and a stinging indictment of those who would defy them, the final section of Born Under a Bad Sky takes the volume far beyond its muckraking beginnings and underpinnings. In doing so, St. Clair has created a classic narrative of writing that simultaneously includes and transcends the best of the travel and nature writing genres. Seemingly inspired by Hunter S. Thompson, Aldo Leopold and the sheer beauty of the natural surroundings it describes, "The Beautiful and the Damned" does more than end Born Under a Bad Sky with a flourish, it conveys it into the genuinely sublime.
While the history and events discussed in this book are not pretty (in fact, they are pretty damn depressing at times), St. Clair's writing describes them in a style that he has become known for. Hard-hitting with the occasional humor, he lays out the facts of his subject matter and then reels in the reader with prose that captivates the reader like the best blues narratives. You get the story and you get it with an emotional force and truth you'll rarely find in the New York Times.

From the timber wars in the Pacific Northwest to the oil war in Iraq, journalist/activist Jeffrey St. Clair documents the bipartisan assault on wilderness, wildlife, and people being committed in the name of economic progress. If you are at all concerned about global warming, air pollution, deforestation, oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, child labor, public health, and the fate of grizzly bears, coho salmon, bald eagles, African lions and elephants, then you need to read this book. Fans of Terry Tempest Williams, Brian Tokar, and Derrick Jensen will love this amazing collection of essays. Thank you AK Press and CounterPunch for publishing yet again another timely, informative, and important book!!!

What has been "Born Under a Bad Sky" is a grassroots environmental movement, and Jeffrey St. Clair, more than any other American writer, has his finger on that movement's "flickering pulse." This movement, he makes clear, was born not in handwringing despair but in love of nature and of places that have moved us.

As for the mainstream environmental movement, St. Clair nails it to the barn door in a single sentence: "disconnected from the people," it has long since "jetted to D.C., where it became what it once despised: a risk-aversive, depersonalized, hyper-analytical, humorless, access-driven, intolerant, centralized, technocratic, deal-making, passionless, direct-mailing, lawyer-laden monolith to mediocrity."

Reading this book will kindle a sense of moral outrage in the reader, but that's the least of its virtues. In a time when too many investigative journalists are content to pile outrage upon outrage and "view with alarm," as if indignation and anxiety were all we need, St. Clair is out to open hearts as well as eyes and minds.

In short, he wants to make this struggle personal for everyone who reads his book. I came away thinking of little-known heroes from my own part of the world -- like Lamar Marshall, who founded Wild South out of a country store in Alabama on the edge of the Bankhead National Forest, and who organized a clean-up of the mess made by illegal dumping in Indian Tomb Hollow, a site held sacred by Native Americans. This book celebrates such people and encourages you, not just to go out and meet them, but to become one of them.

Shorter St. Clair: "Gang Green' major enviro groups have largely sold themselves out for the sake of "access" to the "political process." Then, when their compromises on legislation prove to be less than 50-50, they often turn lemons into lemonade by having a new fundraising issue.

And Democratic leaders, whether Congressional or Presidential, and especially a recent Arkansas president, can often talk a good game on environmental issues, but when you pull back the Wizard's screen, the Emerald City disappears in a puff of smoke - or old-growth forest preservation initiatives disappear in a flurry of salvage logging, etc.

If not forest flim-flam, there's wilderness dodges, damm dams, Harry Reid's gift to Nevada of a cow-grazing national park and much more to peruse.

Shorter St. Clair extrapolation (by me) - If you give money to Gang Green members (following the e-mail action alerts is OK), or pull the "D" lever in the voting booth when you have a Green option, how real of an environmentalist can you be?

That said, that gets me to the first of my two caveats. While I disagree with the Green Party wanting to run a "safe states only" presidential campaign in 2004, St. Clair oversimplifies the Nader vs. GP issue in some aspects. (And, since Nader joined the Bill Frist Brigade in his views on Terri Schiavo before this book was written, I wish Jeff would open his eyes a bit more on "St. Ralph.")

Even more minor caveat -- writing/composition. Several names in the book are misspelled, and apostrophes are misused.

Hey, Alex and Jeff... need a copy editor? I know where Petrolia is!

That said, per my main talking points, this is a great book.

Nature is all around us, and depending on where you are, its ecological health can vary greatly. "Born Under a Bad Sky" is an anthology of essays looking at the ailing side of nature, where it has been neglected and exploited. From the White Death of Iraq, to the creatures of Arkansas, "Born under a Bad Sky" offers the reader a compelling portrait of the world as a whole. It also touches on the role of politicians, and optimistically, those who are turning governmental environmental policies around. A very strongly recommended addition to personal, professional, academic, and community library Environmental Studies reference collections, "Born Under a Bad Sky" is a must for non-specialist general readers wanting to know the environmental state of the world today.