The Sustainability Mirage

Illusion and Reality in the Coming War on Climate Change

by John Foster

Earthscan Publishers, 2008, ISBN 9781844075355, paperback

Near Fine Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions, uncreased spine  (see photographs)

“Sustainable development thinking got environmental issues onto the agenda, but it may now be stopping us from taking serious action on climate change and other crucial planetary issues.
Sustainable development’s attempted deal between present and future will always collapse under the pressure of ‘now’ because the needs of the present always win out.  Inevitably, this means movable targets and action that will always fall short of what we need.  Ultimately, sustainable development is the pursuit of a mirage, the politics of never getting there.
To escape the illusion, we must break through to a new way of understanding sustainability by focusing on the deep needs of the present, not slippery obligations to the future.  Rising to the carbon challenge now, not trying to micro-manage the longer term.  Looking to the science for orders of magnitude and direction, not a game-plan.  Harnessing the short-term dynamics of capitalism to the cause of learning our way forward.”