“Contemporary capitalism and a habitable planet cannot coexist. That is the core message of The Bridge at the Edge of the World, by J. ‘Gus’ Speth, a prominent environmentalist who, in this book, has turned sharply critical of the U.S. environmental movement,” says Ross Gelbspan, writing in the April 27 Washington Post Book World.
In his review of The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, by James Gustave Speth, Dean of environmental studies at Yale, Gelbspan writes (excerpt):
In Speth’s view, the accelerating degradation of the Earth is …“a result of systemic failures of the capitalism that we have today,” which aims for perpetual economic growth and has brought us, simultaneously, to the threshold of abundance and the brink of ruination. He identifies the major driver of environmental destruction as the 60,000 multinational corporations that have emerged in the last few decades….
“The system of modern capitalism…will generate ever-larger environmental consequences, outstripping efforts to manage them,” Speth writes. What’s more, “It is unimaginable that American politics as we know it will deliver the transformative changes needed” to save us from environmental catastrophe….
See Ross Gelbspan’s web site, The Heat is Online.
His books:
: The Climate Crisis, The Cover-up, The Prescription (1998)
and
Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis—And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster (2004)
and the global warming documentary film Everything’s Cool (2007).