Media: Hope Beneath Our Feet

story by Jess HarvellIn the introduction to Hope Beneath Our Feet, editor Martin Keogh discusses the birth of his son, and how it led to some uncomfortable questions: If the environment is really as damaged and unfixable as facts and figures suggest, how do we go on? He looked to writers and activists from around the world for answers, and wove this collection from their responses.
Keogh has managed to wrangle a lot of intellectual heavy-hitters—environmentalists Bill McKibben and Vandana Shiva, the late historian Howard Zinn, journalist Michael Pollan—and Hope offers an excellent overview of the contemporary environmental movement.
And, despite its slightly new age-y title, Hope is not a breezy, feel-good, everything’s-going-to-be-okay kind of book. Its strongest pieces are deeply realistic about the planet’s current condition and its possible future. Pollan sums it up this way: “Going personally green is a bet, nothing more or less, though it’s one we all should make, even if the odds of it paying off aren’t great.”