Though the evidence is not yet conclusive, it seems very likely that, for as long as humans have had verbal communication, they have also had religion. For dig site after dig site, museum after museum, ancient codex after ancient codex, we witness our ancestors praying, begging, beseeching and cajoling gods from the sky to the hearth to alter the course of events. This is strongly suggestive of a nearly universal desire for some sort of metaphysical force to be out there, shepherding our destinies while harboring the wisdom of eternity. But what is religion? Is it, as the dictionaries claim, obeisance to a divine around which a coherent doctrine springs up, or is it nothing more than the need to trust in something bigger than ourselves, something that, on some level, understands and sympathizes with us? To some, this may seem like semantics, but not to Mr. Taylor who has penned a work on a new kind of faith that's as fascinating as it is problematic.
From the trees that give us wood to the fields that give us grain, Humans have always relied upon the fruits of the land to survive and flourish, but it wasn't until the advent of the agricultural and industrial revolutions that we transitioned from being Earth's children to being Earth's exploiters. With the harnessing of electricity and the drilling for oil, the logging for wood and the quarrying for stone, we left behind our fellow species as benefactors of our planet's largess and became creatures ravenous for more fuel, more materials, more stuff by which to effect our collective destiny. Understandably, this harvesting has had enormous consequences for the world we've cultivated, acidifying its oceans, desertifying its grasslands, carbonizing its atmosphere and toxifying its riverways. Moreover, it has thrust further and further into the shrinking wilderness the other species which once roamed free, causing the extinction of some and the endangerment of many.
In response to these consequential changes, a movement has arisen to alert humanity about the depth of these alterations. Stirring in the 19th century but truly taking flight in the 20th, it argues that the planet has been devastatingly degraded by the thoughtless practices of the human multitudes who have been born and sheltered by it, that these degradations are in all likelihood permanent, and that they have not only jeopardized the future of humanity but the future of her world as well. This green movement contends that there must e a universal adjustment in our attitudes, not only with regard to Earth but in regard to our own culture which promotes a kind of disposability of things, of objects, of inventions, which, in the manufacturing and in the throwing away, harm the planet. This movement lacks a traditional godhead around which to coalesce, but in place of the divine it has substituted Mother Nature, engendering her with the same kind of consciousness and purposeful drive that traditional theists grant their creators. Consequently, this strand of environmentalism is not so much a movement but a faith, a green faith, for the 21st century.
Though at times suffering the dryness characteristic of academic work, Dark Green Revolution is, nonetheless, an edifying journey through a growing subculture. Mr. Taylor makes a valiant attempt to categorize the various branches of green religion by primarily measuring the degree to which they believe in Gaia. But more potent than his attempts to organize the various forms of belief are his explorations of the numerous groups that practice such green faith. He identifies their high priests and their shibboleths, their desires and their non-negotiables. And in doing so, he makes a compelling case that, yes, that this form of organized environmentalism is, in fact, some kind of faith. All this without committing his own views to paper...
For all the fascinating and courageous people we encounter here, for all of the history covered and the failures chronicled, Dark Green Religion is problematic. Let us suppose that organized environmentalism possesses some trappings of religion. Do we not completely dilute the term's power by including it? It may provoke passion amongst its adherents, it may even claim to have some sort of force in whose name followers are animated, but filing it under the same definition as the Abrahamic religions seems highly dubious. After all, if we only define religion as having high priests, followers and some sort of organizing principle, we'd have to also include under this banner purposes as ubiquitous and unreligious as DIY, as organized labor, as bird-watching. For they too have their elders, their advocates and their codes, but no one would describe them as religions.
We're forced, then, into a philosophical discussion of terms that distracts from Mr. Taylor's strength here, his investigation of a minority that is both exceedingly colorful and increasingly powerful. Here, he does himself and his subjects justice by leaving his readers deeply informed on the underlying drivers and beliefs that empower those who follow the green faith. However, the obsession with terminology does blunt the degree to which the virtues here can be enjoyed.
Compelling work... (3/5 Stars)
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