The first two thirds provide an admirable synthesis. This part is reccommended to young people who want to get their feet wet on environmental / social justice issues and their interactions. Activists who work with the young would be well advised to check it out too.

The last third, the core of the text, moves into territory where academics and most greens fail - fear? - to tread: the "philosophical" (existential / ethical) dimension of our relation to the earth. Teckies and geeks might see "emergent complexity" here; the artist and mystic, the "metaphysical" or "transcendental"; the religious, the "spiritual" or "religious"..

Semantics aside, the author is boldly - "prophetically" - claiming a redefinition of the place of wo/man on the earth and in the cosmos, a vision that simultaneously respects emerging scientific cosmology AND the integrity of planet's life support systems.

The false, addictive - ultimately suicidal - "values" of the consumer society must be layed aside as cheap fossil energy sources deplete. The natural resilience, autonomy and conviviality of human communities must be rebuilt, beginning with the one we live in. All this must be done in as equitable, just fashion as possible for never before in history was the solidarity of the human race(s) required as it today!

We must, in effect, simultaneously convert the non-renewable energetic and material resource bases of our economies to renewable bases while raising per capita consumption in the poorest regions of the world. Never before was need for cooperation greater..

This great transformation of society - the "Great Turning" - will be lived in constant crisis, this is simply the nature of the age we live in - "karma" if you wish..

"Religion", "spirituality" - in their non-perverted forms - provide the self with a greater context within which its actions are to be evaluated, within which to discover meaning, purpose, value and self-expression. An expanded frame of reference from which to judge the trajectory the world is now following and the probable consequences of following that path for future generations and for all life.

At the end of my reading, I caught myself wondering, "what is truth?". Fundamentalists often speak of truth in absolute terms, with capital "T's": The Truth or, even - arrogantly - God's Word, God's Truth. But to my perception they often seem to be, at best, fools and madmen / vilains, at worst. They seem caught in a web of delusion: ecological crises are interpreted as "signs of the Endtimes" send by God, expressing "His Will" and NOT the product of human stupidity / greed / folly / hubris. I can't help - spontaneously / reflexively - but see than as "mad as hatters" (In my defense: I have crazy ideas but at least I RECOGNIZE they are crazy - most of the time..)