Fight for the Bay

Why a Dark Green Environmental Awakening is Needed to Save the Chesapeake Bay

By (author) Howard R. Ernst

Publication date:

16 November 2009

Length of book:

164 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9780742563247

In this important new book on the declining health of one of America's leading environmental treasures, Howard Ernst reveals a Chesapeake bay that has become functionally dead. He argues that the Chesapeake Bay succumbed to a 'light green' environmental movement that has too often adopted a philosophy of compromise over confrontation and that has fueling a 'political dead zone' where political leaders posture but fail to make the hard decisions needed to achieve real improvement in the Bay's health. While blunt in his evaluation of past and present failures to restore the Bay, Ernst believes that there is still time to turn the restoration effort around and sets out new 'dark green' strategies to do so. In the concluding chapter, five long-time bay activists provide first-person accounts of their battles and hopes for the future. Hailed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as 'a must read for anyone concerned about environmental protection,' this challenging book provides a wake-up call for everyone concerned about the future of the Chesapeake Bay and other ecological treasures through out America.

Chapter 1 Preface
Chapter 2 Acknowledgments
Chapter 3 Chapter 1: Debunking the Light Green Paradigm
Chapter 4 Environmental Conflict: A Clash of Values
Chapter 5 Dark Green Environmental Thought
Chapter 6 Light Green Environmental Thought
Chapter 7 Cornucopian Thought
Chapter 8 The Political Dead Zone
Chapter 9 Chapter 2: The Polite Politics of Light Green Environmentalism
Chapter 10 Environmental Economics 101
Chapter 11 The Long Struggle for Sensible Environmental Management
Chapter 12 Recent Developments in Regional Management
Chapter 13 A Model of Success or a Model of Deception?
Chapter 14 The Sticky Sweet Stuff of Light Green Environmental Promises
Chapter 15 Chapter 3: Environmental Journalists, Our Endangered Filter Feeders
Chapter 16 Why Environmental Journalism Matters
Chapter 17 The State of Journalism in America
Chapter 18 The State of Environmental Journalism in America
Chapter 19 Understanding the Environmental Beat
Chapter 20 Goals of the Environmental Reporter
Chapter 21 Elements of Career Success for Environmental Journalists
Chapter 22 How Editors View Their Readers
Chapter 23 Chapter 4: Environmental Advocacy in the Dead Zone
Chapter 24 In Defense of Sacred Places
Chapter 25 The Belly of the Beast
Chapter 26 The Outside Game
Chapter 27 Media Master
Chapter 28 The Last Word
Chapter 29 Notes
Chapter 30 References
Chapter 31 Index
Chapter 32 About the Authors

Ernst is devoted to elucidating both obvious and subtle aspects of the catastrophic transformation of the Chesapeake Bay from a vast, fecund 'ecological treasure' into a dead zone, first in Chesapeake Bay Blues (2003), and now in this eye-opening inquiry into the failure to restore the Bay, in spite of the spawning of 600-plus environmental groups and the allocation of huge amounts of money. . . . Ernst's incisive and thought-provoking study pinpoints the sticking points holding up environmental progress and offers a do's-and-don'ts primer to effective action.