How can J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic story inspire environmentalists today?

The forests burn. Every day people struggle against environmental degredation. Activists keep hope alive when all signs point to an inevitable defeat.

These themes are found in The Lord of the Rings, one of the most important books of the 20th century, and the modern environmentalist movement. This book explores the epic fantasy novel and shows how it can inform, console, and inspire people fighting for a better, abundant, sustainable world today.

Topics

Ideal Nature in Tolkien

The beauty of Middle Eath and the love characters hold for nature. From the Hobbits in the Shire, to the Elves and their forests, to the Kings of Gondor and their symbolic reverance for the white tree.

Environmental Action

How might we in the modern world take inspiration from characters and cultures from The Lord of the Rings?

• Living in harmony with nature: the Hobbits and Elves incorporate the natural world into their dellings.

• Sustainable management: The Entwives and agriculture. Tom Bombadil and light-touch management. Gimli and Conservation in the Glittering Caves of Aglerond. The Elves and their dream of preserving all things unstained.
  

• Defending nature and restoring it: Sauron and Saruman, and the threat of industrialization against the natural world.

Hope, Despair, and Action

The heart of this book. The Lord of the Rings is filled with characters who confront despair and either succumb to it or rise above it. Topics include:

• The coming darkness: a comparison of the situation in Middle-earth and our risk in the face of the climate crisis
• Despair as a weapon: The Nazgul, the Palantir, and the Words of Wormtongue. How does despair take root in modern organizers
• Responses to despair: denial, subersion, abdengation, and action. I draw parallels between characters in the book and trends in the modern dialog on climate change. From "brightsiders" like Saruman who assume things will be better under the dark lord, to people who refuse to take action, like Denethor, to the activists to take action despite a sense of hopelessness.

Much of this book looks at the challenge of taking action when one personally feels despair, and what we might learn from The Lord of the Rings characters who wrestle with this dilemma.

What is the status of the book?

The first draft is written. The book stands at about 45,000 words and I expect another 5,000 or so as revisit my outline.