Speth sounds off on the future of the environmental movement
This month’s issue of E/The Environmental Magazine, features an interview with Yale Press author and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies dean Gus Speth. Drawing upon his arguments in The Bridge at the Edge of the World, Speth proposes a serious shift in the way we think about today’s environmental movement:
E: What is your message to today’s environmental community?
Speth: Mainstream environmentalism is very incremental, it’s very wonkish in the sense that it’s very technical. But the problem is, it’s like swimming upstream—we get stronger and we think we’re going to master the current and make headway against the current, but the truth is the current is getting stronger faster than we are. […] So my urging to the environmental community is to step outside the system, to develop a more stinging, more in-depth critique and to begin to do some things which the environmental community hasn’t been willing to take on so far.
Speth: Mainstream environmentalism is very incremental, it’s very wonkish in the sense that it’s very technical. But the problem is, it’s like swimming upstream—we get stronger and we think we’re going to master the current and make headway against the current, but the truth is the current is getting stronger faster than we are. […] So my urging to the environmental community is to step outside the system, to develop a more stinging, more in-depth critique and to begin to do some things which the environmental community hasn’t been willing to take on so far.
You can read a complete transcript of the interview here.
