"Nordhaus and Shellenberger are right. The Industrial Age gave us an environmentalism of limits and a politics of "no." The Creative Age requires a politics and culture of "yes" - one that rekindles human aspirations for a better future and unleashes the vast human potential all around us to accomplish it."
"For anyone who is sick of seeing progressive politics reduced to 'an aggregation of the aggrieved,' Break Through is a must-read. It is a fearless, and often counterintuitive, examination of what works and what doesn't in (what we once called) the environmental movement, and beyond."
"Ted Nordhaus & Michael Shellenberger offer a bold and concrete vision... Their book comes at you just as fast and dazzling."
"I read this book on a cross-country flight, and was still flying when walking off the plane... Need a further recommendation? The ideologues of both the left and the right hate them. What could be better than that?"
Ann Oliveri
"This kind of rethinking only happens once a generation, and this book will prove a watershed moment for years to come."
"We need a new form of environmentalism and now, at last, we have one in Break Through. Move over, Al Gore."
"Break Through is a really important book, and everyone even remotely political or environmental needs to read it... I rather want to buy a copy and go hit Hillary Clinton upside the head with it. "Here, Madame President-to-be. You'll need this."
"The authors unabashedly and eloquently make their case, and the book's remarkable audacity in critiquing fundamental shortcomings -- everything from misguided attempts to save the Amazon, NIMBY-ism, and Al Gore's solution-bereft "An Inconvenient Truth" -- is matched by a clear and optimistic voice with a pinch of humor."
"Elegant... Think Fast Food Nation meets The Audacity of Hope... Expect to underline a lot and then grab a friend or co-worker and say, "Listen to this!"
Plenty Magazine
"Green groups may carp, but the truth is the book could turn out to be the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring."
Wired Magazine
"It seems possible to me that the book is that rare event, a world-changer whose influence will be cited for decades."
William Chaloupka, author, Everybody Knows and In the Nature of Things
"Smart."
Time Magazine
"Unremittingly interesting, sharp, and wide-ranging... their analysis of the rise of evangelical churches is particularly strong."
Bill McKibben, author, The End of Nature
"Urgent."
Gregg Easterbrook, author, The Progress Paradox, A Moment on Earth
"Dangerous... I won't waste time reading their new instant bestseller..."
Joe Romm, former Department of Energy official
"[T]he task of environmentalism in the 21st century is utterly unlike that which it defined for itself in the 20th. For a hundred years, those who called themselves first conservationists and then environmentalists defined their task as being to constrain, and clean up after, an existing industrial order. For the next hundred years, our task is to shape, design, and accelerate the arrival of a new, sustainable economic order."
Carl Pope, Sierra Club
"Break Through illuminates a new and empowering politics for America. We can recast global warming, as Nordhaus and Shellenberger point out, not as humanity's ultimate nightmare but as a challenge to our courage and ingenuity by rewiring the world and, in the process, creating a more secure, equitable, fulfilling, connected and, ultimately, peaceful human future'"
-- Ross Gelbspan, author, Boiling Point and the The Heat is On
Praise for the 2004 essay, "The Death of Environmentalism"
"'The Death of Environmentalism' hammered home many truths and may mark an important turning point for greens."
- Globe and Mail
"Almost a year later, I am still periodically sent a copy, along with a breathless 'Have you read this?' note. Not only did I read it, I point out; I tried to call attention to it outside the environmental community back in March, predicting that 'it may be the most powerful and lasting of the very many 'What's wrong with the left?' documents of the George W. Bush era.'"
- Mark Schmitt, American Prospect
"Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus... point to a reinvention of environmentalism which might garner the support of both Red and Blue America."
- National Review
Press
"Paper Sets of Debate on Environmental Politics," by Felicity Barringer
The New York Times February 6, 2005
"The leaders of the environmental movement were livid last fall when Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, two little-known, earnest environmentalists in their 30's, presented a 12,000-word thesis arguing that environmentalism was dead."
"I Have a Nightmare," by Nicholas Kristof
The New York Times March 12, 2005
"[T]he authors, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, are right. . . [I]t's critical to have a credible, nuanced, highly respected environmental movement. And right now, I'm afraid we don't have one."
"Death" and Resurrection, by Mark Schmitt
American Prospect October 2005
"If environmentalists -- or anybody else -- want to accomplish their goals, they'll have to move beyond their own causes."
Michael Shellenberger on NPR's "Morning Edition"
April 22, 2005
"Michael Shellenberger, co-author of a controversial essay "The Death of Environmentalism," argues the environmental movement needs to work on attracting popular support. He accuses environmentalists of losing sight of saving the environment amid political interests."
"Does Environmentalism Have a Future?" by John Meyer
Dissent Spring, 2005
"This reification of 'the environment' both undermines Muir's ecological insight and reinforces the single-issue frame for environmental politics. By setting up "the environment" as something "out there" and apart from everyday life and concerns, it excludes too much; deeply rooted connections to other public concerns disappear from view. It is this, our critics argue, that helps explain why popular support for environmentalism remains so shallow."
Ad Buster Magazine's "Big Idea, 2005"
Ad Busters March, 2005
"Despite the extreme threat of climate change, 'not one of America's environmental leaders is articulating a vision of the future commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis," wrote Shellenberger and Nordhaus. Instead, they argued, modern environmentalism has become too focused on technical policy fixes and single-issue politics and is 'no longer capable of dealing with the world's most serious ecological crisis." More important, perhaps, is the idea that environmentalism can no longer rely on a negative, complaint-based style of activism that fails to engage with the public..."
Sierra Club's Carl Pope Responds to "The Death of Environmentalism"
The Sierra Club, December, 2005
"Environmental advocacy has been dramatically less effective dealing with global warming than with clean air, clean water, wilderness or wildlife. That suggests that part of the problem is not a generic feature of environmentalism, but some specific differences between global warming and these other problems. . . Global warming, habitat fragmentation, and the loading of global ecosystems with persistent but toxic and disruptive industrial chemicals are simply harder for an opportunistic, reactive primate species to understand as threats...."
Clean Edge's Joel Makower on "The Death of Environmentalism"
Clean Edge
"'The Death of Environmentalism' offers an intriguing view of what's wrong . . . and what's possible. Companies, nonprofits, and others would do well to read it and join in on the debate about how to create an innovative, compelling, and effective strategy for transforming the national conversation about the what, up to now, has been referred to as "the environment."
"[I]f The Death of Environmentalism and the volley of retaliatory essays were akin to rifle fire, then Break Through is a cannon shot, one loud enough to resonate with readers outside of professional activism and policymaking."
High Country News
