John Nichols: Frances Moore Lappé's Recipe for Radical Renewal

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from The Nation:


BLOG | Posted 11/01/2007 @ 3:58pm
Frances Moore Lappé's Recipe for Radical Renewal



Frances Moore Lappé has, for the better part of four decades, done her very best to guide the United States toward a more rational relationship with the planet and its inhabitants. It has not been easy work, and the current circumstance would suggest that it has not been nearly so successful as Lappé or the readers of her groundbreaking books would have hoped.

But the truth is that Lappé has succeeded, masterfully.

No popular intellectual has been so very successful in reshaping the character and content of debates about environmental and food policy as this remarkable woman. It is true that there are still deniers of the truths she advances. But they are increasingly isolated in the West Wing of the Bush White House. And their days are numbered.

The future belongs to Frances Moore Lappé -- who in on a national book tour that will take her to Burlington, Vt.; Madison, Wi.; St. Louis and Worcester, Ma., in coming days -- and to those who have been guided by her wise assessments of the most fundamental issues.

Lappé will always be known as the author of Diet for a Small Planet, the 1971 book that reshaped the debate about famines, food shortages and consumption. In it, the author argued that it was not patterns of over-population, bad weather or technological inadequacy that caused human beings to be denied the sustenance they required to survive. Rather, it was the unfair distribution of the world's resources and a deficit of democracy, which undermined the ability of citizens to make that distribution fairer and more responsible.

This simple calculus, which even now is neglected by many policy makers, was revolutionary. It returned the debate about how to deal with famines and related crises to the fundamental issues of inequality and inhumanity.

The response was unprecedented. More than three million copies of Diet for a Small Planet have been sold, and the 15 books Lappé has written in ensuing years have added nuance and perspective to her original arguments while taking the debate about the human condition to new and exciting places. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=247818

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1. Small Planet Institute website: www.smallplanetinstitute.org

http://www.smallplanetinstitute.org/