ABSTRACT

Global environmental issues such as climate change and species loss are intensifying despite our best efforts to combat them. The key reason for this is that the drivers of these problems are closely linked to the industrialism and consumerism that are promoted by governments and other organizations the world over.

This innovative book identifies the key issues that block progress in sustainable development and proposes transdisciplinary solutions. Presenting a review of the epistemology and ethics of this policy field including current policy responses, it examines the ethical and policy implications from a multidisciplinary perspective. The book explains the current limitations of scientific prediction for global environmental issues and develops innovative approaches to respond to these difficulties, drawing out lessons that will make sustainable development policy more democratic, plural and open.

This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in environmental policy, development studies, politics, economics and sustainable development.

chapter 1|6 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|49 pages

Can humans manage the earth?

No! Implications 1

chapter 3|37 pages

Discourse analysis

Brundtland and management

chapter 4|41 pages

Discourse analysis

Do governments want to manage the earth? Yes!

chapter 6|40 pages

Sustainable development theory

Moving from management to stewardship

chapter 7|45 pages

Ecological virtue

A better ethical basis for sustainable development than the ethics of market fundamentalism?

chapter 8|15 pages

Democratising global stewardship

chapter 9|3 pages

Conclusion

Environmental policy in the light of at least one metre sea level rise