''A Blueprint for Survival'' was an influential environmentalist text that drew attention to the urgency and magnitude of environmental problems. First published as a special edition of ''

The Ecologist ''The Ecologist'' is a British environmental journal, then magazine, that was published from 1970 to 2009. Founded by Edward Goldsmith, it addressed a wide range of environmental subjects and promoted an ecological systems thinking approach thr ...

'' in January 1972, it was later published in book form and went on to sell over 750,000 copies. The ''Blueprint'' was signed by over thirty of the leading scientists of the day—including

Sir Julian Huxley Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (22 June 1887 – 14 February 1975) was an English evolutionary biologist, eugenicist, and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century modern synthesi ...

, Sir Frank Fraser Darling, Sir Peter Medawar,

E. J. Mishan Ezra J. Mishan (aka "Edward"; 15 November 1917 – 22 September 2014) was an English economist best known for his work criticising economic growth. Between 1956 and 1977 he worked at the London School of Economics where he became Professor of ...

and

Sir Peter Scott Sir Peter Markham Scott, (14 September 1909 – 29 August 1989) was a British ornithologist, conservationist, painter, naval officer, broadcaster and sportsman. The only child of Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott, he took an interest in ...

—but was written by

Edward Goldsmith Edward René David Goldsmith (8 November 1928 – 21 August 2009), widely known as Teddy Goldsmith, was an Anglo-French environmentalist, writer and philosopher. He was a member the prominent Goldsmith family. The eldest son of Major F ...

and Robert Allen (with contributions from John Davoll and Sam Lawrence of the Conservation Society, and Michael Allaby) who argued for a radically restructured society in order to prevent what the authors referred to as ''“the breakdown of society and the irreversible disruption of the life-support systems on this planet”''. It recommended that people live in small, decentralised and largely de-industrialised communities. Some of the reasons given for this were that: * it is too difficult to enforce moral behaviour in a large community * agricultural and business practices are more likely to be ecologically sound in smaller communities * people feel more fulfilled in smaller communities * reducing an area's population reduces the environmental impact The authors used

tribal societies The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to conflic ...

as their model which, it was claimed, were characterised by their small, human-scale communities, low-impact technologies, successful population controls, sustainable resource management, holistic and ecologically integrated worldviews, and a high degree of social cohesion, physical health, psychological well-being and spiritual fulfilment of their members.The Way: an ecological worldview by Edward Goldsmith, University of Georgia Press, 1998.

References

External links

''A Blueprint for Survival''—full text
1972 non-fiction books Environmental non-fiction books Sustainability books 1972 in the environment {{environment-book-stub

See also

References

External links