How crucial is Callenbach’s deep ecological utopia for the 21st century environmental crisis? An ecocritical reading of Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975)

After the 20th century (which has often been called the dystopian century), many green utopias influenced by the sixties and the seventies now seem to resurface in several forms. Indeed, green utopian fictions involve the rediscovery of inspiring models which make sense in the 21st century environmental crisis. One of them is Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975) which has recently been republished and translated into French and Chinese. Given that almost no study has drawn a parallel between Callenbach’s Ecotopia and Naess’ deep ecology (which is an environmental philosophy which dismantles a world centred on human values), the present work investigates why Callenbach’s Ecotopia can be considered as a deep ecological utopia. Indeed, Callenbach’s Ecotopia embodies several principles of deep ecology. For instance, Ecotopia’s holistic environmental philosophy advocates nature-centred values, circularity and the natural regeneration of the ecosystems. Besides, Ecotopia promotes small-scale self-sufficient minicities which are in tune with their bioregion and which embody the ideal mix between the urban and the rural. But Callenbach’s Ecotopia also foregrounds a number of social, political, technological and environmental solutions. Therefore, I re-read this novel from today’s ecocritical perspective adopting a positive solution-based approach since the significance of Ecotopia for the 21st environmental issues has not been stressed yet. Indeed, as the present study shows, green utopias (such as Huxley’s Island, Callenbach’s Ecotopia, Robinson’s Pacific Edge, Hegland’s Into the Forest and Caron’s Utopia XXI) suggest positive, inspiring and sustainable alternatives which manage to make environmental issues more palpable and concrete in fictional forms. Consequently, Callenbach’s Ecotopia (and thereby literature) not only raises environmental consciousness, but also has the potential to engage with and contribute to the sustainability debate. However, although Callenbach’s seemingly perfect ecological society conveys ground-breaking and inspiring ideas as to environmental, social and economic sustainability, Ecotopia should never be implemented as such since a utopia is a dynamic process and since it involves an array of paradoxes, failures and hidden aspects. For example, Ecotopia involuntary reinforces gender stereotypes and its political system is too informal as well as too personal. Finally, it is worth mentioning that Callenbach was a visionary since he invented videoconferencing and even anticipated climate change to some extent.