Ecotopia

Synonyms

Ecological utopia; Environmental utopia; Ideal ecological state

Introduction

Ecotopia, a novel written 1975 by Ernest Callenbach (1929–2012), describes an ideal ecologically oriented sustainable society (an ecological eutopia). The book discusses a wide variety of environmental topics of ethical relevance, including issues pertaining to organic food, healthy eating, organic agriculture, and sustainable forestry. The novel illustrates how these issues can be addressed ideally and practically. Sometimes the term ecotopia is also used loosely to refer to real existing ecological communities or blueprints of such communities. This entry, however, is focusing on the novel Ecotopiaand its description of an ideal ecological state by the same name. The entry briefly situates the novel as a utopian text that is relevant in the context of the discourse on ecologically ideal living, and then it deals with two philosophical presuppositions of the fictitious state “Ecotopia,”...