Greening the North: A Post-Industial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity [Paperback]

Wolfgang Sachs (Author), Reinhard Loske (Author), Manfred Linz (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1856495086 | ISBN-13: 978-1856495080 | Publication Date: April 15, 1998

While sustainability is in danger of being reduced to a meaningless platitude, the brutal fact remains that industrial countries make a disproportionately large and negative impact on the environment. A serious transition to sustainability will require changing people's mindsets and social institutions, in addition to public policies, technologies and business practices.

This book presents a path-breaking analysis as well as highly innovative proposals for managing this transition. Emanating from Europe's foremost environmental policy think-tank, it has already stirred up a major new debate in Germany on radical, but feasible, directions in which the governments of industrial societies ought to be moving. The concept of 'environmental space' and its ingenious development of indicators for measuring an economy's national and global impact combine with its delineation of concrete policies to give this book its intellectual power and potential political impact.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A breath of fresh air, this book gives us a roadmap to sustainability in the 21st century. It should be widely read, passionately debated and thoughtfully analysed' - Jeremy Rifkin

'The North has led the world into a highly seductive but environmentally unsustainable development model. Only the North can now lead the world out of it. This book has the potential to spark off a global debate on how the future of the world can be secured' - Anil Agarwal, Centre for Science and Environment

'Everybody pays lipservice to the need to change the North profoundly for the sake of global sustainable development. This is a book which lives up to the challenge and figures out what it means' - Martin Khor, Director, Third World Network

'Greening the North is a breakthrough work. No longer is ecological thinking a reactive or resistant response to industrial development. This is the first time a comprehensive ecological framework has been applied to whole field of economic planning and social development where it can be seen as an astute, humane, and decidedly advantageous, one might say inevitable, direction for society. A primer for the 21st century in all industrialized countries, a godsend for the balance of the world's peoples who have wondered how and when the north will take responsibility for its impact upon the global commons' - Paul Hawken, Author, Ecology of Commerce

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Zed Books (April 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1856495086
• ISBN-13: 978-1856495080
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #108,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "Bible" of the German Environmental Movement, September 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Greening the North: A Post-Industial Blueprint for Ecology and Equity (Paperback)

This is definitely the book that has had the most important impact on the German debate on sustainable development in the 1990s. It starts with a quantitative analysis of the disproportionate share that Germany uses of the global environmental space. It furtheron envisions in a realistic manner how Germany could reduce its global impact, and how this could be accomplished while maintaining or even improving the quality of life for its citizens. It shows a wealth of creative new approaches for the transition towards a sustainable society, with an excellent mix of realism and the necessary long-term vision. This book was debated in hundreds of events all over Germany, sparked off an enormous public debate and a series of follow-up publications. It was definitely the most successful publication of the renowned Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. One of its main authors, Reinhard Loske, is now the spokesperson on Environment of the German Greens in the national parliament. This book was called the "Bible" of the German environmental movement by the newspaper Spiegel. It is definitely essential reading for everyone interested in the crucial issue how industrial societies could make the transition towards sustainability.