Customer Reviews

Where on Earth Are We Going?

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this book hoping that it would be about environmentalism. Instead it is an autobiography of the author. To make matters worse it is not even a good autobiography. While the author has had an interesting life and many diversified experiences in many fields the book doesn't read well. The author, for instance, will note that he took over a new position and he'll go on for pages and pages about who he hired and how competent they were. However in these pages of lavish praise he tells the reader little, if anything, substantive about what they (or he) were doing or accomplishing. This happened over and over through the book until about two thirds of the way through I just gave up reading it. On the positive side he does convey the distrust that the third world feels towards the western nations on environmental issues and discusses ways and bringing the two together. Unfortunately, the book has too many faults and too few virtues.

I've seen both excited and disappointed reviews of Mr. Strong's book; I came down in the middle reaching toward both reactions. The book is the account of a life lived and answers sought with seemingly boundless verve, skill, and fairmindedness. Is is also a book that frequently frustrates the reader by never fully delivering on any of the goals it seems to set for itself. It is first and foremost an autobiography, but noone will completely understand Strong's life from it: most notably he is, to put it mildly, elliptical about the end of his first marriage. That is none of our business, of course, but it does leave a considerable gap in the story. By contrast, he gives copious detail about his many professional associates and their interactions, so that the book is also something of a social register. It is wearying to follow this cavalcade of characters, but it is clearly a measure of how much Strong enjoys his fellow beings, including those who have been difficult for him. It is also, I expect, his sincere effort to acknowledge and thank the many people who toil with great talent and commitment in business, government, and nonprofits who seldom get the public recognition that celebrities and elected leaders get. The book was also, for this reader, a foray into the life of business--a world I rarely investigate--and the account of Strong's rescue and reform of Ontario Hydro actually makes big business sound like fun--and ethical too. But this is one of Strong's great gifts: to straddle business, government, and environmental advocacy, standing lifelong for integrating them, as we all collectively must in the years ahead. So, the book is also a primer on management and organizational reform. By turns, it is also about philosophy--environmental, social, personal, spiritual, legal, economic--whatever is on Strong's horizon at any given point. As leader, facilitator, and exemplar, he has made important contributions to Earth-care and sustainability, and readers will find here many valuable ideas on these issues but no systematic and detailed exposition of them. One does find, however, such an exposition of the author's proposals for UN reform, for another of the many hats this book wears is that it is a partial history of the UN and an account of the issues and problems it confronts--that WE confront as we stumble, however resistantly, toward being a healthy world community. Strong's story takes on a special eloquence and intensity when he tells about the gift he received from a famine-stricken Sudanese woman--the book is worth reading just for this passage.
In sum, this book is a bit of a juggling act, but then juggling countless pursuits has been Strong's forte throughout his life, with the flair and genius of a real performer. If you don't expect a thorough, focussed treatment of one subject, you can surely find something of value in its abundance.

As a final note: the book would have benefitted from more proofreading than it got. There are numerous errors of syntax, punctuation, and the like--even a reversal of pages (346 & 347)--that should have been caught before publication.

Well I must say, this was an interesting read to say the least. To be qiute honest this book was not what I expected from reading the backcover. Much of the book seemed like an autobiograghpy( which isn't too bad since he has lived an intersting live) and the rest was on three main issues, Globalization, the Enviroment, and Politics. Though some of the book was a little dry I found the opening and the final few chapters to be very well done. This was an enlightening book which opens doors and makes you think "Where on earth are we going?" I would give this book 3 stars but I gave the extra star for the extremely interesting facts. This book also gives you a good feeling of the structure of the U.N. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in international political science, the U.N. or interesting theories to prevent the earths head on collision with dooms day via pollution. Check it out!!!

Well I must say, this was an interesting read to say the least. To be qiute honest this book was not what I expected from reading the backcover. Much of the book seemed like an autobiograghpy( which isn't too bad since he has lived an intersting live) and the rest was on three main issues, Globalization, the Enviroment, and Politics. Though some of the book was a little dry I found the opening and the final few chapters to be very well done. This was an enlightening book which opens doors and makes you think "Where on earth are we going?" I would give this book 3 stars but I gave the extra star for the extremely interesting facts. This book also gives you a good feeling of the structure of the U.N. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in international political science, the U.N. or interesting theories to prevent the earths head on collision with dooms day via pollution. Check it out!!

Although I never thought of reading a book on planet earth I am so grateful I did. This amazing man who has spent a lifetime tirelessly working for our environment, for the people of this world, tells his story. From humble beginnings to earning the respect as well as a standing ovation of the largest gathering of world leaders ever to convene (The Rio Earth Summit in 1992) his life should be an example to presidents and prime ministers, presidents of corporations and concerned humans. With wisdom and compassion he explains the situation of our planet very clearly and makes some ingenious recommendations as to what we as individuals can do and governments and corporations can undertake in order to avoid the sad destruction of a planet we all love and have to live on. It discusses important issues such as CO2 emissions, biotechnology and genetics, foreign aid, and a term I loved "sophisticated modesty". I am happy I read this book and now I can speak with a little more knowledge on the United Nations, human rights, the environment, globalization and how it affects us and how it affects me. I found it inspiring and enjoyable to read. This book sums it all up succinctly and beautifully.

This is two books in one: an autobiographical view of how one of the world's foremost environmentalists attempted to achieve his goals, and an insider's story of how international environmentalism grew up overnight, in a frenzy of some successes and too many failures.

The book is invaluable for its vivid portrayal of the details and complexities that those less well situated are unable to write about first hand, such as 99% of the world's writers. If you want to understand the nitty gritty of how global environmentalism works and why, "Where on Earth Are We Going?" will take you there.

It will also take you to where I wanted to go in the fall of 2001, when I read the book. That's the year I made the move to working on the sustainability problem full time. I had a lot of learning to do, and Maurice Strong filled in huge gaps in my education.

He also pointed out some of the phenomena that were beginning to attract my analysis. For example, looking over my notes on the book, Maurice explained how solving the poverty problem came to be linked to solving the environmental sustainability problem. To me this has been a historical error for two reasons: One is that the environment must have the highest priority, because if it becomes uninhabitable, then no other problem matters. The second is that Homo sapiens has had the poverty problem for a long, long time--it's that difficult. To attempt to suddenly solve it now by tacking it onto the shoulders of another problem only makes that problem a harder one to solve.

Maurice was the Secretary-General of the 1972 Stockholm conference, which gave him the ultimate insider's viewpoint. He wrote that "The biggest threat to the conference was the ambivalence, even apathy, that developing countries felt toward the whole issue of the environment. From the beginning, developing countries had regarded the West's concern with `the environment' as just another fad of the industrialized countries; in their view pollution and environmental contamination were diseases of the rich.... Most of them would gladly exchange a little pollution for the benefits of economic growth."

Seeing this undercurrent, Maurice "... knew the conference would fail if we couldn't persuade the developing countries to take part. ... The key concept called for a redefinition and expansion of environment to link it directly to the economic development process and the concerns of developing countries."

This was a fateful decision. The solution to the poverty problem of unindustrialized countries was assumed to be development, and the strategy was to "link" this development to solving the environmental sustainability problem. But these are really two very different and separate problems. By linking them together, into what was soon called "sustainable development," the world's problem solvers horse traded one historically intractable problem and one brand new difficult but probably solvable problem into guess what? One big Gordian Knot of an insolvable problem.

Once the offer was made, there was no turning back. Twisted logic became the new norm, such as "The key was to insist that the needs of developing countries would be best served by treating the environment as an integral dimension of development rather than an impediment." But if a country grows economically, and that causes the environment to suffer, then that effect should be treated as "an impediment," not success. Otherwise you have apparently forgotten about the original problem.

Soon, despite the fact that the industrialized countries were producing the lion's share of pollution, "...at the opening session Prime Minister [Indira] Gandhi made what was one of the most influential speeches of the entire conference, with its theme that `poverty is the greatest polluter of all.' "

This should give you a taste of what the book has to offer. If, like me, you are trying to wrap your arms around the whole of the sustainability problem, and you want original source material, then this is one fount to drink deeply from, and find out where on earth we are going, and why.

Jack Harich