Believing Cassandra an Optimist Looks at a Pessimist's World [Paperback]

Really important books are rare. I've found one...and it's just been published in Vermont...

How often do you read a book that will in some way change you and maybe even change the course of human events? When as a teen, I read GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck, it changed my perception of the world and awoke a social conscience in me.

When as a medical educator I read ON DEATH AND DYING by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, it changed the way I taught and changed the way medicine was practiced all over the world.

EUROPE ON $5 A DAY changed the way Americans traveled. And Rachel Carson's SILENT SPRING changed some of the ways humans relate to their home planet.

Well, I've just finished another book that may alter our relationship with Ma Earth. It's called BELIEVING CASSANDRA: AN OPTIMIST LOOKS AT A PESSIMIST'S WORLD. It was written by Alan AtKisson...

The book is about---do not turn off the radio when you hear this word!---SUTAINABILITY.

But it's not airy-fairy, not doom and gloom, not all charts and graphs. Instead, it makes clear and important distinctions between, for example, growth and development; growth means increases in quantity while development means improvements in quality. And while there are truly limits to growth, AtKisson believes there are no limits to development. That's what makes him an optimist.

BELIEVING CASSANDRA is an unusually readable book. AtKisson has a light touch. (He's also a singer-songwriter and public speaker.) And he spells out, clearly and understandably, what he believes will takes us off the track which we're now on, the one that leads to a horrible crash between humanity and Mother Nature.

He's also got a great eye for finding pieces that fit into the big puzzle. He pulls in everything from global warming to codfishing to A HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY to scurvy.

Scurvy? "Consider the story of scurvy. In 1601 a British Captain General discovered a cure for scurvy, a disease that routinely struck sailing crews on long voyages. We now know that scurvy, which involves an outbreak of large and painful sores, is caused by a deficiency of vitamin C. By giving lemon juice to sailors and observing the results, he found that the juice would alleviate the sores. He duly reported his discovery to the naval authorities and recommended that lemons be kept on board as a remedy. His findings and recommendations were politely ignored."

AtKissons follows the course of the disease and its potential cure. "It was 264 years between the time when the cure was first discovered and the time when any British seaman could go on a long voyage without the fear of the disease. Scurvy's tale is a cautionary one, about the costs to people and society when there are delays in adopting good new ideas."

BELIEVING CASSANDRA is a timely execution of a good idea... This is Jules Older in Albany, Vermont, the Soul of the Kingdom.

If the book has a flaw, it is that it eventually ends as all things must. In reading it, when I came across a phrase that registered with my intuition, I turned down the corner of the page. The problem came when I realized I was turning down every other page because of the frequency of so many magically potent phrases. Believing Cassandra's size nearly doubled because of all the wonderful words I wanted to keep close to both my head and heart! Kudos to Alan AtKisson for a triumph that will will be in the fore of this reader's mind as he goes out into the world to put the concept of sustainability into practice.

Our children, our grandchildren, their children and their grandchildren offer a sense of continuity for our efforts, a long term stewardship sensibility which guides our daily choices. We learned this from our parents and their parents, as they tried to offer us a better world than they had as children. Looking ahead three or four decades offers our generation a much more clouded vision of what future generations may have to face. The sheer magnitude of the possible impact of environmental changes defies consideration. The issue is too huge and too important, and our pea-brains deflect in self-defense. We're a crummy little species, but we're all we've got, so we've got to find a way to make the best of it.

In Believing Cassandra, Alan AtKisson offers an realistic analysis of the global situation with upbeat examples of past social change successes and current brilliant pragmatic responses to our species' greatest challenge. This book is cajoling, joyous and entertaining. It is chocolate for the soul, offering a way to consider our future with a constructive attitude. You will laugh, you will understand, and you will start to develop an appetite for the solutions. At the same time, it provides an engagingly fluid and readable explanation of systems theory.

AtKisson, an occasional resident of Seattle, was one of the architects of Sustainable Seattle, which developed a set of indicators for evaluating the sustainability of the choices we are making for our future. You can't use up more than you replace, or the world runs out. Sustainable Seattle has become a template for evaluating the long term impact of environmental and political policies in communities all over the world, and has had a significant effect here at home.

Cassandra, you might recall from Homer, made a deal with Zeus, trading herself for the ability to see the future. She reneged on her part of the deal, but Zeus couldn't withdraw his gift, once given. He got even by confounding her gift with a curse: she would be able to see the future, but nobody would believe her. Thus when she warned the Trojans about the big wooden horse, but they ignored her. We've been ignoring her, too. The planet has a problem, and we are it. Believing Cassandra allows us to look forward to the joys inherent in the solutions.