Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Psychologist Pipher (Reviving Ophelia) brings her wisdom about how individuals interact with culture to this compassionate, beautiful, and personal approach to acknowledging the global environmental crisis while maintaining mental balance and hope. As Pipher lucidly explains, the overwhelming amount of information about the desperate state of our planet leads to stress, avoiding discussion, willful ignorance, and outright denial, while the activist's call of "Wake up!" is an ineffective remedy. Instead, Piper distinguishes between "distractionable intelligence," which makes us feel helpless, and "actionable intelligence," which combines information with suggestions for addressing problems, thus creating hope, motivation, and change. She affirms that with guidance and support, we can reach states of acceptance, action, and, eventually, transcendent growth. Using her experience as an organizer against TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline across the Nebraska Sandhills as an example, Pipher shows the power that groups working together have to provide meaning, healing, and replenishing social support, while allowing individuals to feel like they have a role. Serious, yet accessible, realistic without being alarmist, this could be the most effectively inspirational book available about an individual's relationship to the global environmental crisis. Agent: Susan Lee Cohen, Riverside Literary Agency. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Pipher is perhaps best known for her groundbreaking Reviving Ophelia (LJ 10/1/01) but has researched and written sensitively about other psychosocial issues, including aging parents (Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders) and eating disorders (Hunger Pains: The Modern Woman's Tragic Quest for Thinness). In her latest work, the author tackles environmental issues, but rather than relying upon shocking statistics, she examines the subject through a psychological lens that focuses on society's reticence to act as well as how to change this attitude. She frames the struggle to improve our environment as an underdog story, much like David fighting Goliath or a group of neighbors protesting the Keystone XL pipeline. VERDICT This title offers hope and encouragement for those who find themselves confronted by a sea of obstacles. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
One woman's response to the threat of global environmental issues. "On a global level," writes Pipher (Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World, 2010, etc.), "almost all major systems are breaking down." These issues include "global climate change, drought and famine, overpopulation, diminishing resources, peak oil, the sixth great extinction of species, financial panic, and the specter of war." But instead of feeling as if "we are in over our heads," writes the author, we can become proactive and take small steps that do make a difference. With compassion, Pipher demonstrates this with her personal and rousing fight against TransCanada and the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Sickened by the idea that this environmentally unsound conduit would pass through her childhood stomping grounds and potentially damage the Ogallala Aquifer, the source of water for 40 percent of the United States, the author turned her anger and despair into activism. She gathered friends for informal meetings held in her home, which grew into rallies on the steps of the Nebraska state capitol building, with hundreds in attendance. Festivals brought together different ethnic groups and put rednecks side by side with landowners and "big beef packers," all with the common goal of doing something to stop a situation governed more by money than common sense. Although the pipeline is still under consideration, Pipher's involvement gained her a sense of accomplishment and community. By following her tactics, readers can turn their own angst regarding global issues into simple, direct actions, which, combined with those of their neighbors, will make a difference, both in themselves and in the world. A therapeutic analysis of global crises and enthusiastic ideas on how to implement changes.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
