Planet Dialectics: Explorations in Environment and Development (Critique. Influence. Change)

Planet Dialectics: Explorations in Environment and Development (Critique. Influence. Change)

Wolfgang Sachs, Susan George (Foreword by)
$25.58
Publication Date: April 15th, 2015
Publisher:
Zed Books
ISBN:
9781783603404
Pages:
272

Description

Amid the hubbub of daily life and the seemingly endless bounty of capitalism, it’s easy to forget that all human action must be played out within our planet’s limitations. Any hope of infinity—of infinite growth, infinite prosperity, and the like—is an illusion. Yet that very acknowledgment of the earth’s limits, highlighted by environmentalists for decades, has been assimilated almost seamlessly into the rhetoric, dynamics, and power structures of development.

Wolfgang Sachs predicted as much nearly twenty years ago in Planet Dialectics, his now-classic collection of trenchant and elegant explorations of the crisis inherent in the West’s relationship to nature and social justice. Looking specifically at such key concepts as efficiency, speed, globalization, sustainability, and development, Sachs shows that our current economic system is utterly incompatible with true sustainability and the quest for justice among the world’s people. Only by taking back the concepts of sustainability and justice, and acknowledging that they demand wholesale change to the West’s growth-obsessed economics, can we make real change for good in the world.

About the Author

Wolfgang Sachs is a researcher, writer, and university teacher in the field of environment, development and globalization.

Praise for Planet Dialectics: Explorations in Environment and Development (Critique. Influence. Change)

“Sachs' ideas are dynamite.”
— New Internationalist

“A remarkable book . . . well written, full of food for thought. . . . It should attract a wide readership among students dealing with development, environment, globalization, and planning issues.”
— Progress in Development Studies

“Amazingly innovative in its perspective, unflinching in its analysis, and radical in its solutions, this book is a historic hallmark."

— Tilman Santarius

“If you are not only concerned with the future of our planet but also with social justice, you have to read this book.”


— Gilbert Rist, author of The History of Development and The Delusions of Economics

“Wise words, crafted with loving care for people and the planet, even more relevant than when they were written a quarter century ago, unfortunately.”
— Richard Norgaard, University of California, Berkeley

“Remains an essential read for anyone involved in the field of development. This book has never been more vital than today.”


— Jonathan Ensor, Stockholm Environment Institute

“Sachs elegantly reminds us that in the search for justice to people and planet, we need to begin 'civilization change' by changing the rich, not the poor.”


— Julian Agyeman, Tufts University

“Still remarkably fresh and insightful, Planet Dialectics gives us a much needed critique of economics gone wrong.”
— Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development

“Brings together insights from anthropology, history, economics, cultural studies and environmental science to show that the rapidly expanding global market economy is designed to benefit only the few . . . and will inevitably cause disastrous environmental overshoot. . . . Planet Dialectics is an impressive book.”


— David Mittler

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