Over the centuries, the need for agriculture, housing, medicine transportation, lighting, and the benefits of industrialization has resulted in the human exploitation of our natural surroundings. We know our actions affect the physical world so why must catastrophic problems oil spills, toxic dump sites, death and disease due to overpopulation, poor air quality, and the threat of nuclear war occur before we do anything to protect the planet's finely tuned ecosystem? Why are we blind to the daily assaults we make on our environment?
Peter Seidel points out that "our failure to react to planet imperiling circumstances does not lie in our not knowing what is wrong or not knowing what to do about it, but rather in our failure to take this knowledge seriously enough to act on it. We need to understand this failure and do something about it."
Invisible Walls goes beyond attempts at a pat answer to explore the complex convergence of political, economic, social, and psychological factors that brought these problems to light. If we are to take responsible action to save the Earth and ourselves, we must look at how we evolved as a species, our concepts of the world and how we fit into it, the beliefs we hold, the social structures we create, and the ethical views that divide us from each other and the natural world
Peter Seidel (Cincinnati, Ohio) is an environmental architect/planner who studied with world-renowned architect Mies van der Rohe and city planner Ludwig Hilberseimer, both of the Bauhaus in Germany.
Est. 320 pages ISBN 1-57392-217-X Cloth
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