Chip Ward - Böcker

Warnings regarding our unsustainable lifestyles have become so commonplace that eyes glaze over at the mere mention of the topic. Chip Ward aims to change that. Seeking to convey the importance of living sustainably, he reframes the discourse to point out the consequences we face and the choices we are making. Ward says we must recognize that we are bounded by the limits of a finite natural realm, that “after years of driving economies, we must learn to dance with ecosystems.” The dancing lessons he offers here are eloquent, original, and compelling. Urging us to build resilient communities, he concludes: “When we practice that awkward dance of mutuality that is the very signature of a democratic culture—the dance where we share, learn, listen, reconcile, invite, reciprocate, step towards one another and embrace—we may be received with rough hands and a tenuous grasp. But if we have the courage to engage honestly and if we take our dancing lessons to heart, we may become not only resilient but grateful, humble, and reverent. Wisdom and grace, or business as usual? The choice is here and now.” Chip Ward is a political activist, writer, and former library administrator. He co-founded Families Against Incinerator Risk, HEAL Utah, and other grassroots groups to raise awareness about the links between environmental quality and public health. He is the author of two books and numerous essays

In the late 1970s Chip Ward and his wife left the Sleeping Rainbow Ranch in Capitol Reef National Park to raise their children in the classic small-town American setting of Grantsville, Utah. There, on the edge of the Great Basin Desert, disturbing tales of local sickness and death interrupted an idyllic life. A seven-year quest to understand a hidden history of ecocide followed. Canaries on the Rim is Ward's firsthand account of that quest and how lessons learned in the wilderness were later applied to building opposition to toxic waste disposal, chemical weapons incineration, industrial pollution, and nuclear waste storage. The secret holocaust that is unfolding along the toxic shadow of America's Great Basin Desert is grim, but Ward's colorful and often-humorous story is not. Canaries on the Rim is a warning and a call to arms, but it is also a compelling drama and a lively primer on environmental activism. If civil action took place in Edward Abbey's West, this is the book that would result.