Fascinating Authors

FASACINATING AUTHORS:  What excites you most about your book’s topic? Why did you choose it?
Author: This is a book about one of the most important challenges of this century—sustainable development.  And it is about the impact of that challenge on the world’s most prominent nation—the United States.   The book describes this challenge and provides a constructive and attractive approach to addressing it.  It has more than 100 recommendations for actions that the U.S. could take in the next five to ten years.

Sustainable development would have us protect and restore the environment at the same time as we grow the economy, improve social wellbeing, and provide peace and security.  For far too long, we’ve treated environmental degradation as the necessary price of achieving these other things.  But it is increasingly clear that we cannot have economic growth, improvements in human quality of life, and greater security unless we protect and restore the environment on which they depend.

The United States has the world’s largest economy (even in a recession), the world’s most powerful military, and has often exercised constructive global leadership.  Imagine what the United States could accomplish if it made serious efforts toward achieving sustainability.  Imagine, too, how the world might respond.

We all have a sense that we are moving in an unsustainable direction, but we don’t know what to do about it.  This book describes what we can do.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How long did the book take you from start to finish?
Author: I started inviting contributing authors just over two years ago.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What aspect of writing the book did you find particularly challenging?
Author: The book has 41 contributing authors from a variety of disciplines.  They are well known experts in their fields.  I wanted the book to be accessible to the broadest possible audience, including people who have no particular background on environmental matters.  The major challenge—with this many authors and their considerable expertise–was to keep each chapter readable.  I think we succeeded.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What surprised you the most about the book writing process?
Author: I was surprised by the growing momentum toward sustainability.  Climate change is the public face of unsustainable development, and is a key to this growing momentum.  But for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to climate change, local governments, educational institutions, businesses, and religious institutions have become very active.  We are, I think, approaching a tipping point—where it will be impossible for people to make decisions without being aware of this broader sustainability framework.  This is all very good news.  The bad news—and here I was not surprised—is that we are a long way from actually being sustainable.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you have any favorite experiences when writing your book?
Author: The contributing authors readily, even enthusiastically, agreed to be part of this book.  They are the strength of the book.  The project is too big for any one person to do.  Working with them has been a privilege and a delight.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What do you hope your readers will gain from reading your book?
Author: I hope readers come away seeing that there are lots of things we can do right now, across every sector and activity, to move toward sustainability.  I also hope they see, as I do, that sustainable development would make us more prosperous and secure, in a higher quality environment and a healthy and growing economy.  My highest hope is that this book will reignite a conversation in America about how to accomplish sustainable development.  We had some of that conservation under President Clinton, but nothing under President George W. Bush.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What projects are you currently working on?
Author: We’re trying to get the Obama Administration and Congress engaged on the full implications and opportunities of sustainability.  I’m working on a sustainable energy symposium at the law school where I teach.  We’re also beginning to have a conversation on doing more to green the law school.  At my church, we’re trying to figure out how to make a residence for recent college graduates (formerly a governor’s mansion) much more energy efficient.  I’m active within the American Bar Association on a variety of projects to integrate sustainability into the practice of law.  And I have a bunch of writing projects on sustainable development and climate change—mostly articles.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Is writing your sole career? If not, what else do you do?  Author: I am a full-time tenured law professor, which means that I spend a lot of time teaching and working with students.  This year I am teaching environmental law, climate change law, property, and international law.    I also worked nearly 15 years for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources (now the Department of Environmental Protection), and so I have a lot of firsthand experience with the relationship between environmental protection and economic development.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Did you do any research for your books, or did you write from experience?
Author: This is my eighth book.  My sustainability books are based mostly on research.  The other books focus on legal writing, and here I write a lot from experience with students and student writing problems.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: How did you come up with your title?
Author: We thought of more clever titles, but nothing captured that the basic message of the book better than Agenda for a Sustainable America.  The message is both positive and ambitious.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: What books have influenced you the most?
Author: When I was in high school, I read two books that few people now remember—Moment in the Sun, by Robert and Leona Rienow, and The Frail Ocean, by Wesley Marx.  These books said something I had never thought about–that we had serious environmental problems around the world and that these problems were hurting people.
More basically, the Bible has meant a lot to me—wisdom, guidance, and inspiration.

FASCINATING AUTHORS: Who was your publisher??
Author: The Environmental Law Institute, Washington, D.C.

More information about the Author and the book can be found here – http://johndernbach.com/