Murray Bookchin, 85, Pioneer Ecologist
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Murray Bookchin, an early proponent of what he described as social ecology, died at his home in Burlington, Vt. on Sunday. He was 85.
Bookchin was a proponent of leftleaning libertarian ideas and was among the first people in the early 1960s to promote the then-emerging field of ecology into political debate.
He published “Our Synthetic Environment” under the pseudonym Lewis Herber in 1962 in which he called for alternative energy supplies and introduced the notion of social ecology.
He argued that only a completely free and open society can resolve the problems that confronted the environment at that time.
Bookchin was born in New York City in 1921 of Russian immigrant parents. He joined the Communist youth organization at age 9, although he dropped out a number of years later, disillusioned by its support of authoritarianism.
He worked in steel mills and auto plants before turning to writing about the environment. He eventually publishing more than two dozen books ecology, history, politics, philosophy, and urban planning.
In Burlington, Bookchin was instrumental in helping to organize the Green Party. He also co-founded the Institute for Social Ecology in Plainfield, N.J. in 1971.
