Reported Sightings of New Environmental Niches

The title of this edited collection is apposite in at least two respects: firstly, the essays explore the relationship of humans to the environment of which we are necessarily a part, and, secondly, they are indicative of the diversity of opinion amongst the community of thinkers concerned with that relationship. This is a book rich in ideas which range across problems of scarcity, ecological sustainability and the relationship between ecological thinking and fascism in addition to considering how the frameworks of thinkers such as Habermas and Foucault might be used. The collection provides ample evidence of a growing theoretical maturity in environmental thinking. Although this is in no sense the definitive or canonical collection--nor does it pretend to be--it is thought-provoking and makes a contribution to the discussion of environmental problems. In a collection as rich and varied as this, it is nigh on impossible to do justice to all of the essays in a short review and, accordingly, I make no such attempt; instead I devote most of this review to some recurring themes in the book--the first of which concerns various political institutions and their relationship to good environmental practice.