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

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Key Phrases: new environmental politics, growth fetish, corporate greening, United States, Supreme Court, Business Week (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Ross Gelbspan

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.

Speth is dean of environmental studies at Yale, a founder of two major environmental groups (the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resources Institute), former chairman of the President's Council on Environmental Quality (under Jimmy Carter) and a former head of the U.N. Development Program. So part of his thesis is expected: Climate change is only the leading edge of a potential cascade of ecological disasters.

"Half the world's tropical and temperate forests are gone," he writes. "About half the wetlands . . . are gone. An estimated 90 percent of large predator fish are gone. . . . Twenty percent of the corals are gone. . . . Species are disappearing at rates about a thousand times faster than normal. . . . Persistent toxic chemicals can now be found by the dozens in . . . every one of us."

One might assume, given this setup, that Speth would argue for a revitalization of the environmental movement. He does not. Environmentalism, in his view, is almost as compromised as the planet itself. Speth faults the movement for using market incentives to achieve environmental ends and for the deception that sufficient change can come from engaging the corporate sector and working "within the system" and not enlisting the support of other activist constituencies.

Environmentalism today is "pragmatic and incrementalist," he notes, "awash in good proposals for sensible environmental action" -- and he does not mean it as a compliment. "Working only within the system will . . . not succeed when what is needed is transformative change in the system itself."

In Speth's view, the accelerating degradation of the Earth is not simply the result of flawed or inattentive national policies. It 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 and that continually strive to increase their size and profitability while, at the same time, deflecting efforts to rein in their most destructive impacts.

"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. "Weak, shallow, dangerous, and corrupted," he says, "it is the best democracy that money can buy."

Above all, Speth faults environmentalists for assuming they alone hold the key to arresting the deterioration of the planet. That task, he emphasizes, will require the involvement of activists working on campaign finance reform, corporate accountability, labor, human rights and environmental justice, to name a few. (Full disclosure: He also approvingly cites some of this reviewer's criticisms of media coverage of environmental issues.)

Speth, of course, is hardly the first person to issue a sweeping indictment of capitalism and predict that it contains the seeds of its own demise. But he dismisses a socialist alternative, and, at its core, his prescription is more reformist than revolutionary. He implies that a more highly regulated and democratized form of capitalism could be compatible with environmental salvation if it were accompanied by a profound change in personal and collective values. Instead of seeking ever more consumption, we need a "post-growth society" with a more rounded definition of well-being. Rather than using gross domestic product as the primary measure of a country's economic health, we should turn to the new field of ecological accounting, which tries to factor in the costs of resource depletion and pollution.

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. "People have conversion experiences and epiphanies," he notes, asking, "Can an entire society have a conversion experience?"

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist

Acclaimed environmentalist Speth asserts that our capitalist economy, with its emphasis on continuous robust growth, is at loggerheads with the environment. He minces no words as he writes that to destroy life as we know it, all we have to do is “keep doing exactly what we are doing today.” Observations from nineteenth-century naturalists, such as Audubon writing about the passenger pigeon, reveal humanity’s failure to understand the repercussions of environmental destruction, a lack of foresight now exacerbated by the whirlwind demands of modern consumerism. Quotes from economists, political philosophers, and technology experts offer erudite analyses of a realization set out in Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy (2007) and now gaining momentum: society’s slavish devotion to economic growth does not allow for critical environmental protections. We need look no further than the controversial Kyoto Protocol, Speth reminds us, as evidence. If Americans do not rein in spending, only one result is assured. If we do not learn to consume less, we will consume the biosphere itself in our binge. --Colleen Mondor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1st edition (March 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300136110
• ISBN-13: 978-0300136111
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #184,493 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bridge too far...or still within reach? , May 5, 2008

By	David Radcliff (Elgin, IL) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As do other current writers such as Thomas Homer-Dixon and David Korten, James Speth sees us heading for catastrophe in the way we're over-using and over-polluting the earth, but holds out hope that we may yet turn back from the brink of destruction. He attributes our predicament to an economic system based on little more than constant growth, which in turns requires ever more extraction from the earth; weak or nonexistent government leadership; and an environmental movement that has been less "movement" and more an insider operation that down deep believes a) the government can and will eventually do the right thing and b) there won't be need for drastic redirection of our economic and political systems or serious change in our way of living.

Speth calls for a rediscovery of the true meaning of life (relationships, service, enjoyment of leisure, etc.)--and orienting our economic pursuits around this; a new form of participatory democracy that takes back our country from the corporate-led government we currently "enjoy"; ending over $850 billion in annual global subsidies for "perverse" practices such as overfishing the seas; developing an economic model that incorporates environmental care, human rights and worker well-being at its core; and international treaties with "teeth" to enforce environmental protection of critical habitats and endangered species and ecosystems.

This is a depressing book in that it clearly lays out the challenges facing us; it is hopeful in that it does provide a "bridge" to get us from this world to the next. It's up to us to build it and then be ready to walk over it.

Telling quote: "When the crisis occurs, the actions taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, and to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable."

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bridge at the Edge of the World YOUTUBE VIDEO, April 22, 2008

By	Story Clark Resor "Story Clark" (Wilson, WY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Length:: 3:37 Mins

This is a quick introduction to the book. The video is on YouTube at [...]. Enjoy!

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book That Must Be Heeded, April 1, 2008

By	Philip Shabecoff (Brookline, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This is a book that must be heeded. It is about the most crucial, portentous issue of our time: the rapid destruction of the natural world by human activity and human institutions. Other issues that now dominate the news and with which we are preoccupied--the war in Iraq, the presidential campaign, the faltering economy, the health care debacle--are from a broad perspective merely transient. They will pass. But The Bridge at the Edge of the World makes us look unflinchingly at a crisis that will not pass--the eroding ability of our planet to support life. Global warming is only one of the megaproblems that threaten our future. Others include the toxification of the environment, the loss of biological diversity, dwindling per capital supplies of water and arable land, too many people consuming too many resources and producing too much waste. Dean Speth is most trenchent in pointing to the underlying causes of our environmental failure: market capitalism that does not value the environment, human health or the future of life; corporations whose only duty is to profit; government that fails to protect us from corporate misdeeds and, of late, has abetted those misdeeds. We are standing before the abyss. Speth warns. But he offers a bridge across that fatal chasm. A better economics that reflects the realities of what is happening to the world. A new politics that recognizes and addresses the real crises facing humanity. And a new consciousness by all of us to end our indifference and lethargy and demand that we do what is needed to protect the future for our children and grandchildren. This is a quiet, beautifully written book, but what it contains is explosive enough to wake us all up.
Philip Shabecoff