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

James Gustave Speth, a distinguished leader and founder of environmental institutions over the past four decades, is dean of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. He was awarded Japan’s Blue Planet Prize for “a lifetime of creative and visionary leadership in the search for science-based solutions to global environmental problems.” He lives in New Haven, CT.

The author of Red Sky at Morning would be the first to agree that we are in deep environmental trouble, but he offers hope that there is still time to avert global catastrophe. Gus Speth explores a wide variety of promising and even radical ideas for transforming modern capitalism so as to protect and restore the natural world.

The Washington Post - Ross Gelbspan

This book is an extremely probing and thoughtful diagnosis of the root causes of planetary distress. But short of a cataclysmic event—like the Great Depression or some equally profound social breakdown—Speth does not suggest how we might achieve the change in values and structural reform necessary for long-term sustainability.

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xviii

Introduction: Between Two Worlds 1

Part 1 System Failure

1 Looking into the Abyss 17

2 Modern Capitalism: Out of Control 46

3 The Limits of Today's Environmentalism 67

Part 2 The Great Transformation

4 The Market: Making It Work for the Environment 89

5 Economic Growth: Moving to a Post-Growth Society 107

6 Real Growth: Promoting the Well-Being of People and Nature 126

7 Consumption: Living with Enough, Not Always More 147

8 The Corporation: Changing the Fundamental Dynamics 165

9 Capitalism's Core: Advancing beyond Today's Capitalism 183

Part 3 Seedbeds of Transformation

10 A New Consciousness 199

11 A New Politics 217

12 The Bridge at the Edge of the World 233

Notes 239

Index 281