By SCOTT TIMBERG


BERKELEY, California - Sometimes a book, or an idea, can be obscure and widely influential at the same time. That’s the case with“Ecotopia,”a 1970s cult novel, originally self-published by its author, Ernest Callenbach.

The novel, now being rediscovered, speaks to our ecological present: in the flush of a financial crisis, the Pacific Northwest secedes from the United States, and its citizens establish a sustainable economy, a cross between Scandinavian socialism and a Northern California back-to-the-land ethic, with the custom - years before the environmental writer Michael Pollan began his campaign - to eat local.

White bicycles sit in public places, to be borrowed at will. A creek runs down Market Street in San Francisco. Strange receptacles called“recycle bins’’sit on trains. A female president, more Hillary Clinton than Sarah Palin, rules this nation, from Northern California up through Oregon and Washington.

“‘Ecotopia’became almost immediately absorbed into the popular culture,’’said Scott Slovic, a professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.“You hear people talking about the idea of Ecotopia, or about the Northwest as Ecotopia. But a lot of them don’t know where the term came from.’’

In the ‘70s, the book was a hit, selling 400,000 or so copies in the United States, and more worldwide. But by the ‘80s, the novel seemed like a good candidate for a ‘70s time capsule - a dusty curio without much lasting impact.

Yet today,“Ecotopia’’is increasingly assigned in college courses on the environment, sociology and urban planning, and its cult following has begun to reach an unlikely readership: Mr.Callenbach, who lives in Berkeley, California, has been invited to speak at many small religious colleges. This month, the book’s publisher, Bantam, is reissuing it.

When he began working on his novel, Mr.Callenbach, now 79, was a middleaged editor of science books at the University of California Press. He spent three years writing the book, sending each chapter to scientists to make sure the science held up. Then the real work began.

“It was rejected by every significant publisher in New York,’’Mr. Callenbach said.“Some said it didn’t have enough sex and violence, or that they couldn’t tell if it were a novel or a tract. Somebody said the ecology trend was over.’’

But he cobbled together money from friends and printed 2,500 copies. The first printing sold, as did the next, and after an excerpt in Harper’s Weekly magazine, Bantam decided to publish“Ecotopia.’’

Set at what seems to be the turn of the 21st century, and told through the columns and diaries of a reporter from the fictional New York Times-Post, the novel is not especially literary. Its characters are flat; its prose is utilitarian. And the plot, in which the narrator drops his skepticism and settles into Ecotopian life, thanks in part to a love interest, lacks sophistication. And yet the book continues to influence attitudes today.

So what has“Ecotopia’’given us- A great deal, thinks Professor Slovic , including the bioregionalism movement, which considers each part of the country as having a distinct ecological character to be cultivated. The green movement’s focus on local foods and products, and its emphasis on energy reduction also have roots in“Ecotopia,’’he said. In fact, much of Portland, Oregon, with its public transport, slowgrowth planning and eat-local restaurants, can seem like Ecotopia made reality.

“People may look at it and say,‘These are familiar ideas,’’’Professor Slovic said,“not even quite realizing that Callenbach launched much of our thinking about these things.’’

“Ecotopia’’has its critics. Feminists attacked it for its ritual war games, in which men don spears to work off their“natural’’aggression, dragging women into the woods to celebrate.

Some were made uncomfortable by the way black people were excluded from Ecotopian society: most live in Soul City, which is less affluent and green than the rest of Mr.Callenbach’s world. The author said he was reflecting black nationalist ideas of the time, as well as an early ‘70s skepticism about integration.“I probably would write it quite differently at this point,’’he said.

Over the years, Mr.Callenbach’s readership has changed, as hippies and New Agers have been joined by churchgoers.

Mr.Callenbach hopes the book will resonate among the greening edges of an evangelical movement. But the novel’s relatively free sex and liberal politics may limit that readership.

But to Mr.Callenbach and many of his fans,“Ecotopia’’is a blueprint for the future.

“It is so hard to imagine anything fundamentally different from what we have now,’’he said.“But without these alternate visions, we get stuck on dead center.’’

“And we’d better get ready,’’he added.“We need to know where we’d like to go.’’