Michael Zimmerman (1995). Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense: Approaching Environmental Literacy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 220 p.

Near the start of Science, Nonscience, and Nonsense: Approaching Environmental Literacy, Michael Zimmerman tells a story about the difficult time he had trying to find a place to walk his dog without a leash near his home in Oberlin, Ohio. The city had passed an ordinance allowing the dog warden to ticket anyone whose dog defecated or urinated anywhere in town other than on the owners property. He reflected:

This story sets a tone for the book whose chapters are based on, and grew out of, a series of newspaper articles. Zimmerman, Dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and syndicated columnist, maintains that the book is a primer intended to help a nontechnical reader understand how science works while at the same time providing insight into the more urgent of our environmental problems.

The book is at its best, I think, when it talks about science and nonscience. The first two chapters deal with his initial involvement in the "science literacy" movement, and in particular, his dealings with creation "scientists." He is highly critical of the state of scientific literacy in his country, and points out that while school science may provide students with details about science–science content–most people have little understanding of the processes and rules under which science is carried out.

Zimmerman compares the way science works to a variety "psuedosciences": "creation science," graphology, astrology, lie-detector testing, and homeopathy. And, he notes that his father was treated for an illness with a homeopathic preparation containing diluted DDT. That scientific illiteracy abounds is exemplified through data such as:

But beyond science, Zimmerman moves into an analysis of the nature of the environmental movement and the environmental problems at the end of the 20th century. For example, he looks at issues such as global environmental change, land-use and abuse, biodiversity reduction, chemical pollution, food and contaminants, and technological optimism.

His conclusions, as expressed at the end of each chapter, are not surprising. The chapter on "Global Environmental Problems" ends with:

The chapter on "Endangered Species" concludes:

I did not find the book particularly engaging or revealing. In fact, it read like a series of magazine articles covering subjects that were not new, and not really providing me with any particularly new insights or troubling dissonances. It is interesting, but only in that it gives some new facts or details. Nothing in this slim volume is particularly earth-shattering–no deep new insights, no particularly clever analysis. It says the "right" things, and it says them clearly; but it didn’t say anything new.

One might ask the author why he included the phrase about environmental literacy in his title. Nowhere in the book’s index is the word "literacy" repeated. And, since even the concept of environmental literacy is reasonably contentious, I was surprised that it never came up again. I guess by this standard, any popular book on medicine could aptly be subtitled: Approaching Health Literacy. Sadly, the people who might purchase this book will find little new, and those who might benefit will be unlikely to take even a second look.

Richard Kool

British Columbia Parks Branch, Canada

Practice and the "Practical Arts"" of the Teacher Educator

Given the relative neglect of the field, 1996 might seem to have been a good year for environmental education within teacher education. Two books were published on the topic and parts of other environmental education books focused on the issue. But, just what sort of year was it? Just what have these publications contributed to our awareness and understanding? This brief review will attempt to answer these questions by looking at the following publications:

W. Leal Filho & K. O’Loan (Eds.). (1996). Teacher Education for the Environment: European Perspectives. Bradford/Carnforth, UK: ERTCEE/Parthenon Press;

J. Glasgow (1996). Environmental Education in the Formal System: the Training of Teachers. In W. Leal Filho, Z. Murphy & K. O’Loan (Eds.), A Sourcebook for Environmental Education: A Practical Review Based on the Belgrade Charter. Bradford/Carnforth, UK: ERTCEE/Parthenon Press;

S. Inman & P. Champain (Eds.). (1996). Thinking Futures: Environmental Education in Initial Teacher Training, a Handbook for Educators. Godalming: WWF; and,

J. Huckle (1996). Teacher Education. In J. Huckle & S. Sterling (Eds.), Education for Sustainability. London: Earthscan.

Leal Filho & O’Loan’s Teacher Education for the Environment is a collection of articles, arising from a project part-funded by the European Community, which detail a number of initiatives undertaken to strengthen the relationship between environmental education and teacher education. The book’s claim that the contributions "provide clear examples of approaches and methods that may be replicable elsewhere" is questionable on two grounds. The first relates to whether such replicability is either desirable or possible; the second relates to whether you’d really be advised to replicate what is set out here, even if it were desirable. The "garden gnome mould approach," implicit within the notion of replicability, is questionable if you believe, following Noel Gough, that a prime purpose of environmental education research must be to assist environmental educators in the practice of those practical (self-reflective curricular and pedagogical) arts, which they use in their attempts to understand and improve their work, in the unique circumstances in which they operate. Unique circumstances demand unique solutions. So, altering the question, is there anything here which you might possibly take heed of in order to see how well it fits with your context? Yes, of course; there is normally always something of interest when practitioners tell their stories. For me, it is Tony Shallcross’s Scottish home truths which stand out. But in the volume as a whole, there is too much which is formulaic, descriptive, and uncritical, and the editors must accept responsibility for this.

Joyce Glasgow’s "Environmental Education in the Formal System" is noteworthy partly because it suggests that "the right teachers are absolutely crucial to the environmental education enterprise, especially as they are expected to be models of the values they try to encourage in their students" (p. 72). Really? Is it no wonder, then, that such teachers seem to be in such short supply. Assuming that the "right" teacher educators are also needed, one has to wonder where such paragons are going to be found, unless they are the colleagues who have been absorbing the long list of needs, directives, objectives, qualities, competencies, and skills which are presented in this chapter–in part from the author’s own writing for UNESCO-UNEP. This litany is replicated largely uncritically with little sense of how any of its contents might contribute to those necessary practical arts. The appending of a number of very brief vignettes (on: the Caribbean, Malta, Nigeria, Kenya, and England and Wales) was never going to add very much as the sources of information are limited to two books edited by one of the editors of this present volume, and published over three years ago. This limited, internal referencing is undoubtedly efficient but hardly effective.

Thinking Futures arises out of WWF-UK’s teacher education programme. The initiative sought to explore ways in which environmental education could be integrated into the initial training of teachers by awarding development grants to six institutions in the UK. The book is in three parts. Part 1 consists of a rationale for environmental education within pre-service programmes, and part 2 examines teacher education issues more generally. Part 3 then sets out reports from four of the institutions. These reports focus on a range of contexts, and exploratory activities. And, they deal with a number of generic issues including: the management of change within universities, and issues relating to the introduction of multi- and inter-disciplinary initiatives. At this stage, I should declare an interest and say that I was involved in one of those university initiatives. In the illuminating and challenging opening to this book, Phil Champain draws on experiences talking to teachers, tutors, and student teachers. He relates these to sustainability and development issues, developing his theme with the education for sustainability literature as a backcloth. Part 2 is similarly valuable. Anyone wishing a thoughtful introduction to issues surrounding the incorporation of environmental education within pre-service programmes in England and Wales could do worse than study Sally Inman’s text. Although it is narrowly focused on developments within a part of the UK, with little by way of an international framework, this chapter raises lots of important issues. The case studies in the final part of the book are mixed. This is, in part, because their focus varies so widely from quite narrow curriculum issues to a broad policy focus. They do, however, provide insights into tutor and student teacher practice and their interaction with schools which are likely to resonate with other teacher educators–irrespective of context.

John Huckle’s chapter on "Teacher Education" in Earthscan’s Education for Sustainability is not really about the sort of teacher education that most of us are familiar with. Rather it is about the sort of teacher education that Huckle would like us all to be doing. Education for Sustainability is an important book, contributing to our understanding of issues relating to education for sustainable living, but it is rather uneven, and this chapter is one of the bumpier sections. In part, the chapter is a secular panegyric for the critical theory of Jürgen Habermas; in part, it offers a quasi-postmodern commentary on the theory’s shortcomings–that it "puts too much faith in the new politics of social movements rather than the old politics of class" (p. 110). It is also something of a pitch for WWF-UK’s in-service programme "Reaching Out: Education for Sustainability," with which John Huckle is involved, and which is "strongly based on critical theory and action research" (p. 111). In the middle of the chapter, brief details are given of a number of other publications which focus on teacher education, seemingly not merely to bring them to our attention, but so that they can be scrutinized "to assess the extent to which they contain critical perspectives" (p. 112). Towards the end, when most of the heavy-handed political analysis and posturing is out of the way, Huckle does manage to say something about the state of teacher education in England and Wales today which allows you to recognise, at last, that he is analysing the same system in which you work, but it’s a long time coming, and all too brief. And when at last it comes, whilst you might agree with parts of the diagnosis, it’s more difficult to see much merit in the prescription which accompanies it–at least from where I stand. This chapter could only have been written by someone who is fully convinced of his own non-capitalist moral certainties and truth. As for me, someone who clearly has accumulated unto himself more than his fair share of false consciousness, and who is still waiting for transformative revolutionary zeal to strike, I suppose that I never really had a hope of appreciating what Huckle is saying. However, if you need to know more about "aesthetic reflexivity," "critical teacher education for sustain-ability," "critical pedagogy," "colonization of the lifeworld," "detraditional-ization," "disorganized capitalism," "people’s emancipatory interest," "reflexive modernization," "transform-ative intellectuals," "utopian realism,"–and more–then you might start here. Just don’t be misled into thinking that it’s got much to do with teacher educators and their practical arts.

William Scott

Centre for Research in Environmental Education

Theory & Practice, University of Bath, UK

Neil Smith (1996). The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City. London and New York: Routledge. 232 p.

Trends in urban development and rural settlement have important implications for ecosystems. The Urban Frontier contributes to a broader understanding of development for environmental educators who are interested in the effects of social and political issues and the subsequent changes in the environment.

Neil Smith describes the gentrification process of advanced capitalist cities as "class warfare," and draws a parallel with Frederic Jackson Turner’s (1893) frontier thesis. Smith states that during the frontier period "economic expansion was accomplished largely through geographical expansion," and today the "link between economic and geographical expansion remains, giving the frontier imagery its potency." Turner described continued frontier expansion as the civilizing of the "savage" and the wilderness. Gentrification, then, is an expansionary process by the white upper classes in their attempt to reclaim and re-civilize the inner city, pushing out working- and under-class residents.

The "revanchists" comprised a political movement in France in the late nineteenth century which reacted to, and sought revenge against, the liberalism of the Second Republic and the Paris Commune (1870-1871). Smith parallels fin-de-siecle France and fin-de-millenaire capitalist cities by comparing revanchism with what he sees as a current "broad, vengeful, right-wing reaction" against the legacy of the liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s and the predations of capital in today’s inner city.

Since the 1970s, middle and upper classes have been searching for new opportunities to invest capital. One area targeted is the refurbishment of old city neighbourhoods which have previously experienced disinvestment and a middle-class exodus. Smith argues that the American frontier was pushed forward less by individuals than "by banks, railways, the state and other collective sources of capital," combining economic and geographical expansion. It follows, therefore, that gentrification is internal economic expansion through the conquest of already developed spaces by those with the money and power to do so.

The book is laid out in four sections. The introduction describes the social, political, and economic conflicts which are raised by gentrification, focusing on Tompkins Square Park in New York’s 1980s Lower East Side. Part One offers a short history of gentrification and a survey of current theoretical debates, positing Smith’s own rent-gap theory, and examines local and global economic and social issues. Part Two details gentrification in Society Hill, Philadelphia, and Harlem, New York, as well as three European cities: Amsterdam, Budapest, and Paris. Part Three argues that the emerging revanchist urbanism of the late twentieth century "embodies a revengeful and reactionary viciousness against various populations accused of stealing the city from the white upper classes."

Smith points to George Custer’s (1865) vicious declaration that the only true policy to adopt in dealing with the Sioux rebel leaders was that of extermination. Around the same time, the American government attempted to move squatters who were establishing homesteads along the frontier. By organizing themselves against speculators and the government, squatters forced the passing of the Homesteading Act of 1862. In comparing the squatters of the frontier with those displaced by urban gentrification, Smith states that it is beyond dispute that the city is the new Wild West. He does not, however, mention an earlier preemption law which recognized settlers’ common-law claims to land.

Turner argued that the frontier contributed to individualism, democracy, and the forging of the American character. It also offered a gate of escape from the bondage of the past and was sharply distinguished from the densely settled and fortified European frontiers. Smith’s analysis ignores these attributes of the American frontier experience. Turner’s purpose was to call attention to a moulding force that earlier historians had failed to emphasize. He acknowledged the importance of immigration, urbanization, industrialization, and commerce, never intending to explain the past solely in terms of a single force. Smith’s use of frontier discourse to illuminate gentrification is contrived and distracting and contributes nothing to the understanding of the role of the state in the development of urban housing in Budapest or the history of gentrification in Paris.

When frontier discourse is left behind and the unique interplay of similar, and not-so-similar, variables within each case study is uncovered, the argument becomes insightful. Gentrification is the contesting of urban space between socio-economic classes. Revisiting the concept of "class" and classical Marxism, Smith offers an understanding of the social and political contest, particularly at the local level. Upon examining the European case studies, Smith concludes that it is "of primary importance to retain a certain scalar tension between . . . the individuality of gentrification in specific cities, neighborhoods, even blocks, and . . . a general set of conditions and causes . . . ." The author makes use of academic theory as well as examples of social commentary found within popular culture, such as Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury and the lyrics of Lou Reed, thereby appealing to a wide audience and grounding his analysis in everyday urban life.

Interestingly, the book idealizes the role of the squatter in the new urban frontier by stating that "the first and most patriotic act in [urban frontier] pioneering . . . will be squatting." Squatters in the frontier of the American West displaced Native peoples. The question of who, if anyone, is displaced through squatter action in today’s urban frontier is not part of Smith’s discussion. It is left for the reader to ponder alone.

Karen Landman

PhD candidate, Queen’s University

Department of Geography, Canada

Robert Lamb (1996). Promising the Earth. New York, NY: Routledge. 223 p.

With cover reviews from directors of Friends of the Earth (FoE), and a membership offer for the same organization on the final page of the book, the partisanship of Robert Lamb’s Promising the Earth is evident. Written "in collaboration with" the United Kingdom’s Friends of the Earth for its 25th anniversary, Lamb’s work chronicles the evolution of one of Britain’s foremost environmental pressure groups. Created in 1971 as a partner group of David Brower’s American Friends of the Earth, FoE UK quickly acquired a leadership and direction of its own. Robert Lamb guides the reader through the group’s past, from its heady origins in the 1970s, through the eco-boom of the eighties, and into current restructuring challenges.

Despite partisanship, Lamb does a fair job of documenting the FoE corporation, showing its successes and failures, and the effects of changes in leadership and circumstance. The occasional self-congratulatory tone can often be forgiven, if not dismissed, because FoE UK has indeed many landmark victories to its credit. Above all, Lamb demonstrates the quirky and inventive spirit that characterizes the group’s many campaigns. Numerous tongue-in-cheek manoeuvres, carried out with timely finesse by dedicated FoE staff and volunteers, pepper the book’s pages and provide inspiration for all environmental activists. When, for example, the Cadbury-Schweppes corporation announced that it would no longer use returnable bottles for its soft drink products, FoE carefully placed thousands of bottles at the doors of the corporation’s headquarters. And when Prime Minister Edward Heath missed question time due to London traffic congestion, FoE members gleefully delivered a gift-wrapped bicycle to 10 Downing Street.

But it is more than delightfully bold advertising campaigns, as Lamb outlines, that have driven Britain’s FoE. An early focus on the use of careful science in countering industry and government claims has helped FoE UK win many public campaigns. Hundreds of publications have shown FoE to be dedicated to the pro-active environmentalism that offers alternatives to the status quo. The group’s participation in forced public inquiries on issues such as urban development, nuclear power, and road construction have raised public discussion to new levels, and have even reversed decisions. Finally, FoE UK has retained a clear focus on promoting informed consumer choice, and has made clear to the British public how individuals can contribute to societal change. These central directions have been created and consistently supported by the dedication of the near-volunteer staff. After 25 years, FoE UK has indeed much to celebrate!

While laud is due to FoE UK for its admirable campaigns, one could accuse Lamb of claiming them more credit than is their due in swaying public opinion in the last 25 years. Above all, FoE UK markets the cause of environmentalism, and is guilty of following the often detrimental trends associated with chasing public opinion. Their campaigns have moved with the times, through oppositions to whaling, to exploitation of exotic cats, to nuclear power, and to tropical rainforest clearcuts. FoE’s campaigns clearly send messages the public is prepared to hear; the group’s mastery is in interpreting and seizing the Zeitgeist, not in creating it. This is perhaps where Lamb’s zealous stance claims too much.

Lamb is, however, careful to characterize the eventual shortcomings of FoE in its evolution as an organization. Environmental groups are as susceptible as corporations to strife from internal politics, restructuring, and loss of a clear mandate. Constant rifts between local volunteer groups and the centrally employed London office continue to plague the organization, and some suggestions could be gleaned from the book for other activist corporations suffering similar problems. However, the detailed analysis of the internal workings of the London office lead the outsider to partake, almost embarrassingly, in what seems like gossip.

What is perhaps least clear about this publication is its intended audience. While the book sporadically chronicles the parallel rise and fall of other like-minded pressure groups, a complete lack of bibliographic referencing makes the work an unreliable choice for scholars of the environmental movement. Its occasionally dry tone, awkward sentence fragments and tedious detail of specific personalities make it an unlikely candidate for wide public readership. For North American affiliates of environmental pressure groups, it provides an interesting comparative picture, but detail of the UK corporation could hinder any practical transfer.

This suggests that Promising the Earth may remain a mere memento for those involved in the UK organization of Friends of the Earth. While a fair and considered souvenir, it is unfortunate that Lamb falls short of reaching a wider audience. Unlike Friends of the Earth itself, Lamb may be preaching to the converted. For North American activists who, in these challenging times, have found their determination waning, a more accessible public chronicle of FoE’s actions would have served as an inspirational reminder of the importance of our task of "Promising the Earth."

Holly Bickerton

Masters candidate in Environmental Studies,

York University, Canada