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more concerned about where their next meal is coming from. Therefore a
successful program to alleviate ecological disruptions must be predicated
on economic growth for the human population. In contrast to those who say
things have to get worse before they get better, Nordhaus and
Shellenberger propose that "things have to get better before they can get
better." (p. 36)
I was really pleased to see them refusing to rely on the undefineable
concepts of "Nature," "natural," and "unnatural" as ethical or political
guideposts. Some years ago, on a deep ecology listserv, I expressed my
own disenchantment with those terms. My answer was to refer to "the
world," "the creation," "atoms-and-space," "the material world," "the animal-
vegetable-mineral world," "the cosmos," "the universe," "the totality," or
maybe "everything" - anything to avoid those loaded "Nature"-based words.

Nordhaus and Shellenberger agree that we shouldn't make a distinction
between us and That, which is what the word "Nature" is all about. They
could quote the Hindu aphorism tat tvam asi - That Is You. On the other
hand, they don't stop using the N word. If they can't replace it with
something better, then a doubt creeps in: have they really gone beyond
that limiting factor?
Well, they have their own concern: "to imagine Nature as essentially
harmonious is to ignore the obvious and overwhelming evidence of
Nature's disharmony." (p. 144) Sounds good at first. But wait.
Environmentalists don't say nature is harmonious. (Anyway, one thing can't
be harmonious. You have to have two or more.) And they certainly don't
say that nature should harmonize with us. Environmentalists say humans
should harmonize with nature. Some want a radical-wilderness way of life,
others, most of them, simply want to minimize the dissonances. It may be
true that many have gazed back at a putative golden age in the past when
humans supposedly lived in harmony with nature. Well, that's wishful
thinking. But I doubt any ecologist was ever unaware of the pain caused to
humans by what we call "natural disasters."

There can be no doubt about the intensity of the authors' feelings on this
topic. The two ecohumanists protest strongly against the existence of a
monolithic, unitary, capital-lettered Nature. "The way environmentalists
think of Nature is as metaphysical - and as authoritarian - as the way
monotheists think of God." (p. 141) And, "What use is there in referring to
what Nature wants, other than as a strategy to short-circuit democratic
politics by asserting authority from a higher power?" (p. 144) And higher
people, too - they decry "claims to privileged knowledge and authority" (p.
145) by those who claim to hear the voice of Nature and speak on its
behalf. They would change the upper case first letters of certain
troublesome nouns and make them plural: Nature becomes natures,
Science becomes sciences.
"We are Nature and Nature is us," (p. 143) they boldly declare. Do they
mean we are part of...That, or do they mean "man is the measure of all
things?" They really snuggle up against anthropocentrism when they go on
to say, "Whatever actions we choose to take or not to take in the name of
the survival of the human species or human societies will be natural." (p.
143) They're heaping confusion upon confusion, employing terms they
reject as meaningless ("Nature" and "natural") to justify practically any and
all human activities.

Now we get to their most interesting proposal. "Embracing a pragmatic,
ecological, and scientific multinaturalism demands that we let go of the
outmoded idea of the singular, natural, and essential self. We are a welter
of genes, ideas, chemicals, mental organs, instincts, emotions, beliefs, and
potentials colliding inside and outside of our skin." (p. 152) Self becomes
selves. The "I" is we.
It turns out, then, that Nordhaus and Shellenberger have cast their lot on
the determinist side of the determinism vs. free will debate. There is no free
will because there is no center of intention, no motivating agent.