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Such fatalism is not only dangerous but mistaken. For much of the 1990s I traveled the world to write a book about our environmental predicament. I returned home sobered by the extent of the damage we are causing and by the speed at which it is occurring. But there is nothing inevitable about our self-destructive behavior. Not only could we dramatically reduce our burden on the air, water and other natural systems, we could make money doing so. If we're smart, we could make restoring the environment the biggest economic enterprise of our time, a huge source...
...Harvard to study physics but decided he was beyond his professors. So he became "a 17th century thing--a general experimentalist," a fuzzy notion that, he says, Harvard found hard to accept. He transferred to Oxford, where he studied everything from climatology to biophysics, but when he wanted to write a thesis on energy-resource strategy, he was told to pick "a real subject." In frustration, he quit with a master's degree and began consulting, lecturing and writing...
Ravelstein owes his good, big fortune to Chick, who suggested that his friend write a book in the hope of bringing his expensive tastes and his professorial income into closer alignment. But Chick does not consider himself Ravelstein's benefactor or mentor: "Though I was his senior by some years he saw himself as my teacher." Chick sees things the same way and willingly obeys Ravelstein's instructions: "He wanted me to write his biography and at the same time he wanted to rescue me from my pernicious habits. He thought I was stuck in privacy and should be restored...
That turned out to be Boston and B.U., where he still teaches and still enjoys students. "Some don't know anything," he says. "They don't know how to write at all. Some, however, almost the same percentage as earlier, speak well, write well, are intelligent, read closely, are sympathetic." He adds, "I was curious as to whether TV had driven literature into some hole in the ground. I don't think...
...author has nothing against the computer but resists using one. "Philip Roth pushes me more than anybody else. He says I'd find that I had a lot more free time." Bellow still works the old way, writing in longhand, typing that version, making corrections and then typing everything again. At the moment, he says, "I haven't got a subject. Writers who don't write are really very difficult creatures. I may not have to write anymore, you know," he adds with a smile. "I'm going...