The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability

Description

How serious are the threats to our environment? Here is one measure of the problem: if we continue to do exactly what we are doing, with no growth in the human population or the world economy, the world in the latter part of this century will be unfit to live in. Of course human activities are not holding at current levels—they are accelerating, dramatically—and so, too, is the pace of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment, and toxification. In this book Gus Speth, author of Red Sky at Morning and a widely respected environmentalist, begins with the observation that the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to decline, to the point that we are now at the edge of catastrophe.   Speth contends that this situation is a severe indictment of the economic and political system we call modern capitalism. Our vital task is now to change the operating instructions for today’s destructive world economy before it is too late. The book is about how to do that. Contents Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: Between Two Worlds Part One. System Failure 1. Looking into the Abyss 2. Modern Capitalism: Out of Control 3. The Limits of Today’s Environmentalism Part Two. The Great Transformation 4. The Market: Making It Work for the Environment 5. Economic Growth: Moving to a Post-Growth Society 6. Real Growth: Promoting the Well-Being of People and Nature 7. Consumption: Living with Enough, Not Always More 8. The Corporation: Changing the Fundamental Dynamics 9. Capitalism’s Core: Advancing beyond Today’s Capitalism Part Three. Seedbeds of Transformation 10. A New Consciousness 11. A New Politics 12. The Bridge at the Edge of the World Notes Index