50 years of ecotopia

In the late Seventies, I first read Ernest Callenbach’s utopian novel, published in 1975, about a time in the not-too-distant future (1999) when the northern part of California, as well as Oregon, and Washington secede from the rest of the United States to form their own state, Ecotopia, which is also the title of the book. It concerns a skeptical reporter named William Wesson who is sent by the president of the remaining States to see how this lost land might be recaptured.

I picked it up again disgusted by the political events surrounding Trump’s rogue state, in which anonymous agents of the Department of Homeland Security invade homes, schools, and supermarkets to arrest and deport illegal immigrants, on whose starvation wages much of the American economy depends. This book inspires courage and anticipates many things that we could hardly imagine back then, but which are part of our everyday life today: recycling stations, remote viewing, the legalization of cannabis, fitness as a cult, a helicopter war in no way inferior to today’s drone wars, war games with real victims. I don’t want to give too much away, I’d like you to read it, available from Banyan Tree Books as The Complete Ecotopia, including the sequel Ecotopia Emerging, which describes how the secession came about and what made it possible.

Even though most of us in Europe are better off than many US citizens, we are still a long way from where we need to be in order to cope with, let alone avert what is rapidly approaching. This summer is already beating all records and making  reality what climate scientists are urgently warning us about: earlier and earlier, hotter and hotter!

When Wesson arrives in Ecotopia, he is suspicious and fears for his life, recording his observations and experiences in official reports and private notes. Over time, however, he learns to understand the country that hosts him. And he falls in love.

Perhaps you’ll find some ideas in this exciting book that you can apply to your everyday life and will lead you to defend our threatened planet at the ballot box. Denial is futile. Ernest Callenbach, author, filmmaker, and advocate of a simple life, showed fifty years ago that there is another way.

Thoughtfully yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

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