Man, this book could have been so much better. Adam Werbach is certainly a noteworthy member of the younger generation (of the 90's), around the same age as me. I'm also a member of Sierra Club. Therefore I've always been impressed by this guy, who at a very young age, was able to become president of an established organization with hundreds of thousands of members. Werbach has great innovative insights into environmental philosophy and activism that are true improvements over the old antiquated notions. He's surely a unique thinker with many great ideas. But sadly, he is not a writer by any stretch of the imagination.

All of Werbach's good ideas and efforts are quickly used up early in this book. What remains is an unfocused, scatterbrained hodgepodge of disconnected ideas and points that are not explored. While claiming to write an activist's manual, Werbach merely delivers a list of environmental complaints and "inspirational" stories about local activists, with no surrounding context or big-picture conclusions. He makes up for it with a lot of sarcastic finger-pointing and attention-grubbing polemics. Werbach overloads clichés like "we were building a bridge to the future" and adds several short stories that are just squishy kiddie parables, possibly written when he was in grade school. Most laughable is a sketch of a man called Bootsy in the land of Phunk who wanted to be the sun. (The esteemed Mr. Collins deserves an apology.)

There are factual errors galore, like 1990 as the date of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. In Section 3 Werbach decides to organize all the environmentalists of the world into five categories, all with derogatory names - Druids, Polar-Fleecers, Apocalyptics, Eco-Opportunists, and Eco-Entrepreneurs - then weakly encourages all to work together. Werbach's takes on politics and economics are superficial at best. He comes close to major insights in his section on environmentalism and religion, but falls into triviality again. Pass on this book's sad case of arrested development, and wonder what could've been.

This book is a light read. It's chock full of inspiring stories illustrating how environmental action can succeed. It's weak on establishing either a philosophy or political theory for environmental action, and has little concrete advice for organizing. The writing style flows nicely and is not difficult. This would be a great book for a Jr. High/High School level environmental club to read and discuss.

Although not systematically organized, most of his stories illustrate useful strategies for environmental action, such as:

"We only need to provide people with the facts that enable them to make up their own minds and empower them to act on their decisions. We need to be savvy, but we don't need to employ scare tactics and misleading information to communicate our message." (p. 218)

He provides a number of examples of corporate greed gone haywire, such as the Pacific Lumber story (p. 118), the cost of timber roads in our National Forests (p. 208), and the impact of Wallmart (p. 247+).

His stories are entertaining and informative, even at his own expense. It's a great book to read between something by Ruether and something by Bookchin--a light break between heavies.

(If you'd like to discuss this book or review in more depth, please click on the "about me" link above & drop me an email. Thanks!)

Readers looking for a "how-to" of activism need to check out THE FUTURE IS OURS (John W. Bartlett, Ed.), to which Adam contributed a chapter, instead of harping on Adam's book for not providing one. ACT FIRST, APOLOGIZE LATER offers young readers what they need before seeking out the "how-to" -- inspirational success stories, a window into the grueling fun of Adam's own experiences as an activist, and some foundational principles for activism and life -- in an accessible and conversational tone. Simply put, Adam's book gives readers a sense of possibility for themselves and the world. Because it does that, it is invaluable.