ABSTRACT
The global scale, material complexity and interdependence of the environmental problems we now face have produced circumstances few national governments on their own, or even on their own terms, can respond to effectively. This is made more difficult by a widespread culture of economistic prescription that puts growth, by almost any means, as the main business of political economy (Jackson, 2009; Stutz, 2010). This tricks out our extremely serious environmental threats as calculable risks somehow reframed as ‘adjusted’ investments for the future, as though we can predict or even ‘manage’ living in a world 2 to 4 degrees warmer (Meadows et al, 2004).
