Garrad's Positions

In this excerpt of Ecocriticism Garrard explores several groups and their rhetorical and philosophical attitudes towards ecology. His approach is refreshing as he gives each group a fair reading but takes the time to point out what their critics say and the flaws inherent in certain ways of thinking. I am thinking specifically of his commentary on Environmentalism, in which he states in the same breath that environmentalism is extremely powerful and yet compromised as it makes so many concessions to society and "the ruling socio-economic order" as radicals have called it. This frankness is refreshing to me as he is being realistic in light of his own opinions and/or hopes, which he makes clear are aligned with the earth's interests-and not those of cornucopians who see natural resources as commodities. Garrard gives a view of the landscape of ecological thinking that allows us to view other writers as claiming allegiance to a branch of ecocritical philosophy. Williams, for instance, identifies with ecofeminist and social ecology ways of thinking. In her story that blurs historical events and fantasy-style poetry Williams indicts the masculine military establishment as the clear culprit of nuclear bomb testing near enough to her neighborhood that she can recall seeing an explosion from her childhood. More importantly the women of her family line become infected with breast cancer and men suffer from various forms of cancer-leaving one woman twice a widow. The government's role as rapist of the land intensifies when it throws its hands up and claims no responsibility as it is literally against the law for the government to be implicated in such a crime, let alone blamed for it. As Garrard points out in his passage on Ecofeminism the female is identified with the land-its life and seasons-and the male is identified with science and rationality: the likes of which creates such wonders as nuclear bombs.