Unsustainable

In direct language, Unsustainable explains the double bind in which humanity now finds itself - an environmental crisis that is escalating year on year, and a human and social crisis of poverty and inequality that is also growing increasingly worse. Aimed at a concerned, popular audience, including both budding social activists and young people studying the environment and international development, the book explains how these twin crises share the same historical roots. Brilliantly combining a huge amount of up-to-date information, visual charts, and clear explanation, Hossay shows step by step how a particular historical path of colonialism, capitalist development and industrial growth has brought us to this state.

He shows how current attempts to develop effective environmental policies and to promote sustainable and socially just development internationally are being stymied by free-market forces, corporate-centered globalization, and the policies and actions of key international institutions.

The very structure of our global order is unsustainable. There are no simple answers. Changing our own behavior is important, but fundamentally inadequate. Hossay argues that only a fundamental restructuring of the way we do business will save us from environmental and human catastrophe. And he suggests ways in which we can work for such changes.

Table of Contents

1. The Trouble We're In

Hotter for Some than Others
The Air We Breathe
Ecocide
Toxic Planet
It's Going to Get Worse


2. How Did We Get In This Mess?

An Unenlightened Enlightenment
Industrializing Nature
A Global System
US Dominance
American Affluence and Global Catastrophe
A Public-Private Empire
Corporate Globalization


3. Making the Rules

Banking on Poverty
Subsidizing Destruction
Free Trade Isn't Free
The World Trade Organization


4. There's Got To Be A Limit

Money is Everything
The Inefficiency of the Market
Pricing the Priceless
Modernization
Racing to the Bottom
Commodified Lives


5. Everything's For Sale

Food as a Commodity
Plants and Animals as Commodities
Water as a Commodity


6. Changing The Rules

Cleaning up Our Act
Clean Water and Air
Lowering Our Sights
Lots of Talk, Little Action
A Small Step in the Right Direction
A Model of Successful Resistance?
Kyoto


7. Conclusion: Resistance is Fertile
Buy a Hybrid Car, Save the World?
Challenging the Rules of the Game
Taking Back Democracy
The New Environmentalism
Talking About Power
Demanding the Unreasonable
You Say You Want a Revolution
Reason for Hope

About the Author:

Patrick Hossay teaches international development and environmental politics at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.