Reviewed by George Price
June 26, 2021

Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert, will probably be the most important book published anywhere in 2021, on the most important issue facing all Life on Earth—why we must end the prevailing human economic and industrial practices and the anthropocentric cultural worldviews. It will probably also be the most reviled, attacked, suppressed, censored, dismissed, misrepresented, and slandered book published this year, as well, for some of the same reasons that many people virulently attacked and censored the documentary film, “Planet of the Humans,” last year. Why?

The authors answer the question of why these facts are so difficult to hear, and why they are also so difficult for many of us reluctant messengers to tell, at many points throughout their book, including this passage from the chapter on green energy storage:

“We are being sold a story, and we are buying it because we like it. We want it to be true. We want to believe that our lives can go on with all the ease and comfort we accept as our due. How painless to believe that a simple switch of wind for oil and solar for coal and we can go on with our air conditioning and cell phones and suburbs. Every time we hit a trip wire of unsettling facts or basic math, we soothe ourselves with our faith in technology. If all that stands between us and the end of the world is a battery that can store 46 MJ/kg, surely someone is working on it.”

Most modern humans have been taught all of their lives, by most of the voices of their culture, that their own comfort, pleasure, purpose, social standing, legacy, avoidance of pain, and continued survival depend upon the perpetuation of, and their conformity to, western industrial technological capitalist civilization. That teaching has been reinforced within their psyches by a long series of painful and pleasurable personal experiences. Therefore, they do not want to hear convincing, factual arguments which clearly demonstrate that nearly everything that they have been taught to value and have devoted their lives to is intertwined within a path toward the imminent destruction, collapse, and extinction of not only their so-called “way of life,” but also the real, natural world upon which all biological life on Earth depends.

 Happy Thursday!

The ball has been pushed and we are starting to roll! For the past year, COVID-19 halted most of our efforts and planned events in the Missoula area. Today, we are happy to announce that we have begun planning several projects for the upcoming year. We are planning to bring back our educational events this Autumn and update our website with new content and resources for everyone! We also have several other projects planned that are being worked on by FCAM's members who are volunteering their time and energy to get us back up and running. We are excited with what we have planned and we hope you all will be too!

Our biweekly meeting is set for this coming Tuesday, May 18th at 4pm. If you have not yet signed-up to receive email updates or would like to get involved with FCAM, fill out the sign-up form here and feel free to contact us!

***Note - This blog is an idea for the website update. Feel free to comment if you like the idea of a blog where we can share information on upcoming events and keep you informed about future updates.***