Spirituality and Ecological Hope

by James Gustave Speth
Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2004

This is one of the things we have needed – a book that not only lays out an unfiltered view of the dire circumstances of global warming, the urgency of the task to reverse the human contribution to this warming, and the time out of which we are rapidly running to prevent catastrophe, but also an agenda for action, things to do that are clear, straightforward, necessary.

Speth has a long history in environmental work that makes him one of our more credible leaders – founder and past president of the World Resources Institute, co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, advisor on environmental issues to Presidents Carter and Clinton, CEO of the United Nations Development Program, and currently dean and professor at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale University.

Part One, “Environmental Challenges Go Global….�? lays out a no-holds-barred assessment of our ecological crisis.  “For such crucial issues as deforestation, climate change, and loss of diversity, we have already run out of time: appropriate responses are long overdue.�?

Part Two, “…And the World Responds,�? unpacks the failure of global initiatives on climate change, the recalcitrance of governments (especially our own), and the forces at work that make the failure inevitable.  This part will anger you.

Part Three, “Facing Up to Underlying Causes,�? gives a great overview of the many “drivers�? behind environmental deterioration.  To Speth’s credit, he doesn’t stop with the scientific and technical drivers; he goes right to the heart of the matter, to the consumer, the lifestyles of all of us, to the interests of powerful corporations, to attitudes and values.

Part Four, “The Transition to Sustainability,�? lays out the beginnings of a broad “citizens’ agenda,�? what he calls “The Eightfold Way,�? addressing fundamental issues such as reducing global population, eradicating poverty, developing “environmentally benign technologies,�? pricing consumer goods in a way that includes the full cost to the environment, “sustainable consumption,�? acquiring the knowledge “needed for the transition to sustainability,�? the demand for good governance, and what he calls “the most fundamental transition…the transition in culture and consciousness.�?

Speth does not spare some of the orthodoxies, the “gods�? of capitalist economics, especially the religion of “growth,�? an approach that is no longer sustainable and will lead to the collapse of the ecosystems that make our lives on this earth possible.

This is not a long book, nor overly technical; it is readable, accessible.  It ends with many pages of resources for citizen action organized around the eightfold way.