My Favourite Curmudgeon Environmentalist

I feel both lucky and privileged to have been able to study with and learn from John Livingston. He was in his last years of teaching when i was a student in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. And we hit it off quickly. I'm not sure why. He had a somewhat fierce demeanor - of the "not suffer fools gladly" type. But i know that i instantly appreciated and loved his passion and clarity of feeling about the problematic relationship between the human built world and the natural world. His work challenged the common sense about environmentalism in ways that i feel we (both society at large and the environmental movement specifically) have yet to embrace.

An article in this week's Toronto Star by a graduate of FES is aptly titles The Greatest Environmentalist You've Never Heard Of. Louise Fabiani writes:

While Livingston was no Luddite – he benefited from hi-tech medicine and central heating as much as the next person – he hated the human sense of entitlement that enables us to perform the most unspeakable acts of cruelty and waste. Sport hunting, vivisection and habitat destruction filled him with a despair that dogged him for most of his life.

But despair is not nearly as sustainable (or, sad to say, acceptable) as rage – not for the average male, anyway. Initially, I joined many fellow students in tiptoeing around John's temper. His oratory style alternated between measured and combative. He snapped at unsupportable statements. He interrupted himself in mid-lecture to sputter indignation at some memory that assaulted him out of nowhere. He did not suffer fools gladly – though, to listen to him, fools got whatever they deserved.

I recommend John's writing as essential reading for all those of us who would fancy calling ourselves environmentalists. Check out The John Livingston Reader. Worth it.