Social & Cultural Aspects of Technology, Social Sciences - General & Miscellaneous, Social & Cultural Aspects of Technology, Ecology & Environmental Sciences, Environmental Conservation & Protection, Development, Ecology, Landscape & Environment - Social
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Overview
In Gray World, Green Heart, Robert Thayer identifies three conflicting forces - topophilia (love of land and nature), technophilia (affection for and dependence upon technology), and technophobia (fear of the negative side-effects of technology) - which he believes are at the heart of the current environmental crisis. These forces, he contends, coexist yet often compete within each of us, giving rise to "an oppressive sense of connection between our lifestyles, the immediate surroundings in which we live, play, and work, and the environmental and social problems looming in the...world at large." Paradoxically, according to Thayer, we compound the problem, appeasing our guilty consciences by hiding air conditioners behind redwood fences and using consumptive technologies to build fake waterfalls, volcanoes, and other superficial simulations of nature. Thayer offers a viable alternative to hollow, symbolic solutions to our environmental crisis in the form of sustainable landscapes. What he gives us, in fact, is nothing less than a theoretical framework upon which to build a future in which technologies serve rather than dominate nature. Thayer proposes a piece-by-piece transformation of our world from one based on resource consumption and "landscape guilt" to a network of interrelated, community-based living systems that operate in harmony with one another: sustainable landscapes that would conserve resources and preserve their essential ecological characteristics. Richly supported with concrete examples of how technological systems might be transformed, this book focuses on the unself-conscious public and private spaces that define our everyday landscape from coast to coast. Numerous illustrations and diagrams clarify both the problems that face us and the solutions Thayer offers. For all planners, environmental designers, educators, and students alike, Gray World, Green Heart offers a bold vision of landscape which transcends the conflict between technologicalEditorials
Booknews
Thayer (landscape architecture, U. of California, Davis) identifies three conflicting forces--topophilia, technophilia, and technophobia--which he believes are at the heart of the current environmental crisis. He offers strategies for sustainable landscapes that would conserve resources and preserve essential ecological characteristics. Includes b&w photos. For planners, environmental designers, and students. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Book Details
Published
December 10, 1993
Publisher
New York : Wiley, c1994.
Pages
376
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780471572732