cover image Restoring the Earth

Restoring the Earth

John J. Berger. Alfred A. Knopf, $18.95 (241pp) ISBN 978-0-394-52372-9

In the general climate of environmental woes there is an occasional ray of light: a chemist pioneers the technology of building marshes in Chesapeake Bay, and botanists re-create the prairie; a chapter of the organization Trout Unlimited clears and stocks a Cape Cod stream; a village in Wisconsin, rejecting federal flood-relief money, moves to a new site above the flood plain. Berger (Nuclear Power: The Unviable Option) describes public-spirited men and women who have worked to repair and restore our damaged natural resources, with varying degress of success. The Nashua River in New Hampshire is improved, though still polluted; results of a toxic waste cleanup in Montague, Mich., are as yet unclear. Turning the devastation of abandoned strip mines into productive land has sometimes succeeded, with the cooperation of officialdom and owners. Berger provides some splendid models for the fight for environmental improvement. November 1