Callenbach's ecology novel, ECOTOPIA

The deep ecology demonstrated in the novel Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach has been criticized from a number of perspectives by those who see it as a distortion of true ecological thinking, as an impossible utopian vision that has little to do with the real world, as an economic nightmare, as a political structure that will not work, and so on. The reporter who narrates the novel is exposed to a number of different aspects of this new society, and he is fascinated by some of the social structures and institutions he encounters and horrified by others. Similar responses are found among the critics.

Callenbach describes a society which has abandoned the structures and attitudes of industrial society in favor of a communal system in which there is shared ownership of farmland and major industries and a town-hall type political system, developed in small regions and without a centralized political system. Underlying this social and political system is a different attitude toward nature, an attitude that says that human beings and their lives have to fit into a larger natural world-picture and that human beings cannot see themselves as having the right to use and abuse nature for their own needs. This view is in keeping with the essential perspective of deep ecology, and critics of such a system see it as utopian and so unattainable because it ignores the reality of human needs in this world while exaggerating the degree to which man and nature can be equalized.

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e scientific view as offering just ass rich a connection to the world of nature as does the animistic or pantheistic view that seems more to accord with the Ecotopian ideal and with the ideal of deep ecology. For that matter, as noted, the ecotopians themselves make use of nature in some degree. Their favorite material is wood, and they even make their plastics from wood. The relationship they see as necessary with nature is a renewable one so that what they use will return to the soil in time. The difference between this view and that of most environmentalists is not that great on this score, for renewable resources have been promoted by environmentalists for some time. Tim Luke notes that deep ecology involves principles beyond a new philosophy of nature, for deep ecology also serves as the core of a number of political action groups and movements. This would be in keeping with the sort of political action and change seen in Ecotopia where the organizations of the state and the economy are both developed in terms of how they relate to the natural world. Luke, like the ecotopians, sees deep ecology as a counter to the prevailing paradigm of industrial civilization, a paradigm in which resources are used and waste is produ

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