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

According to Gus Speth, a widely respected environmentalist and author, if the world continues to do exactly what it is doing, with no growth in the human population or the world economy, the world will be unfit for human life in the latter part of this century. 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 his new book, The Bridge at the Edge of the World, Speth argues that though the environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, the environment is continuing to decline, to the point that we are now at the edge of catastrophe. He contends that this situation is a severe indictment of the economic and political system we call modern capitalism. In the face of this terrifying outlook, The Bridge at the Edge of the World explores a wide variety of promising and even radical ideas for transforming modern capitalism so as to protect and restore the natural world.