What it means for global sustainability when environmentalism is
dominated by the concerns of the affluent-eco-business,
eco-consumption, wilderness preservation. Over the last fifty
years, environmentalism has emerged as a clear counterforce to the
environmental destruction caused by industrialization, colonialism,
and globalization. Activists and policymakers have fought hard to
make the earth a better place to live. But has the environmental
movement actually brought about meaningful progress toward global
sustainability? Signs of global "unsustainability" are everywhere,
from decreasing biodiversity to scarcity of fresh water to steadily
rising greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, as Peter Dauvergne
points out in this provocative book, the environmental movement is
increasingly dominated by the environmentalism of the rich-diverted
into eco-business, eco-consumption, wilderness preservation, energy
efficiency, and recycling. While it's good that, for example,
Barbie dolls' packaging no longer depletes Indonesian rainforest,
and that Toyota Highlanders are available as hybrids, none of this
gets at the source of the current sustainability crisis. More
eco-products can just mean more corporate profits, consumption, and
waste. Dauvergne examines extraction booms that leave developing
countries poor and environmentally devastated-with the ruination of
the South Pacific island of Nauru a case in point; the struggles
against consumption inequities of courageous activists like Bruno
Manser, who worked with indigenous people to try to save the
rainforests of Borneo; and the manufacturing of vast markets for
nondurable goods-for example, convincing parents in China that
disposable diapers made for healthier and smarter babies. Dauvergne
reveals why a global political economy of ever more-more growth,
more sales, more consumption-is swamping environmental gains.
Environmentalism of the rich does little to bring about the
sweeping institutional change necessary to make progress toward
global sustainability.
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