Sunday, May 14, 2006
Ecotopia Book Analysis.
Ecotopia describes a world of simplicity. The people in this book live through communal effort, mutual lifestyles and the use of healthy natural materials such as wood to build homes, and iron to make tools. Unlike our society where there are sometimes black puffs of muck and hazardous chemicals roaming freely in the air we breathe, Ecotopia introduces a more green environment where gardens and trees are abundant. Their total reliance on oil and complex machine parts have been abandoned and as a result, Ecotopians travel from place to place by bicycle or walking. In Ecotopia, its people are not granted permission to own an automobile, instead the only vehicles that exists in Ecotopia are trucks that help import and export resources. By eliminating their reliance on massive "fossil fuel burning" transportation automobiles and services by not having everyone driving, they do not face risks of environmental destruction from global warming, risk of cancer from car exhausts, etc. By having a possession of a bicycle these people have the ability to conserve physical energy, and be able to travel to wherever they are capable of traveling to. To further produce a more stabilized energy source, Ecotopians organized a physical work force that works on an average 2 and a half hours a day, instead of using thirsty machines that require to burn fossil fuels in order to operate. Uranium, Titanium, or the complex use of machinery does not exist in Ecotopia. Instead the homes and stores in this book are made of wood which can be gathered by careful selective cutting.
Analysis:
Seems to me that the author believes that if people create a more simple environment with a simple lifestyle by eliminating the "extra parts" in our current society today would help improve life after the age of Oil. But when I read the parts about how people are going to cooperate with one another, and help survive as a "community" and how we can live helping the environment instead of damaging it, I felt as if everything was just too perfect. Not everyone are obedient people who wants to live mutally with one another. There are people who wants to be superior, there are people who eats more than others, there are people who are jealous of another man's hot wife or their offspring's success. All these different emotions and personalities would rip a hole in a community that believes that everyone's "together". There will be people who don't believe in working to get somewhere, instead they rob or steal or form a gang of looters that rely on plundering other's success to survive. People are bound to disagree, and dispute over things they dont agree upon.
Analysis:
Seems to me that the author believes that if people create a more simple environment with a simple lifestyle by eliminating the "extra parts" in our current society today would help improve life after the age of Oil. But when I read the parts about how people are going to cooperate with one another, and help survive as a "community" and how we can live helping the environment instead of damaging it, I felt as if everything was just too perfect. Not everyone are obedient people who wants to live mutally with one another. There are people who wants to be superior, there are people who eats more than others, there are people who are jealous of another man's hot wife or their offspring's success. All these different emotions and personalities would rip a hole in a community that believes that everyone's "together". There will be people who don't believe in working to get somewhere, instead they rob or steal or form a gang of looters that rely on plundering other's success to survive. People are bound to disagree, and dispute over things they dont agree upon.
# posted by Nian @ 2:53 PM 
