The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability - Hardcover

The author of Red Sky at Morning would be the first to agree that we are in deep environmental trouble, but he offers hope that there is still time to avert global catastrophe. Gus Speth explores a wide variety of promising and even radical ideas for transforming modern capitalism so as to protect and restore the natural world.

A conversation with Gus Speth

Q: What might surprise the readers of your new book?

A. It’s no surprise to many people that we are facing momentous environmental challenges. But what few people realize is that we can’t solve these problems with more of the same approaches we’ve been using.

Despite the best efforts of environmentalists to work within the system, the system has not delivered. And so it is now time for the environmental community indeed, everyone to step outside the system and develop a deeper critique of what is going on.

We all live lives powerfully shaped by a complex system that rewards as well as destroys. That system is now giving rise to an undesirable reality environmentally, socially, and politically. If we want to transform that system for the better, we should stop being predictable and become agents of change.

Q: What have you concluded? Can we still make enough meaningful changes to reverse the damage?

A: My conclusion, after much searching and considerable reluctance, is that most environmental deterioration is a result of systemic failures of the capitalism that we have today. Real solutions will require transformative change in the key features of this contemporary capitalism. In this book I’ve tried to identify these transformative changes.

The good news is that impressive thinking and some exemplary action have occurred on the issues at hand. Proposals abound, many of them very promising, and new movements for change, often driven by young people, are emerging. These developments offer genuine hope and begin to outline a bridge to the future.