What every environmentalist needs to know about capitalism

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William C. Whitesell

"This book provides a thorough grounding in the science and economics of climate policy issues and draws key lessons from the longer experiences of central banks in grappling with related challenges. Findings and controversies of climate history and the effects of human activities on climate are reviewed. The author describes similarities in risk management approaches for climate and monetary policy. Overall goals and frameworks for addressing climate change risks are assessed. Command-and-control and market-based options are compared (including performance standards, taxes, and cap-and-trade). Market-based approaches sometimes require a choice between prices and quantities as policy instruments. However, the author discusses how techniques of central bank interest rate management can be adapted in a hybrid climate policy approach to achieve environmental goals while making carbon prices predictable and also ensuring well-functioning carbon markets. Key lessons are offered for improving existing and future national and international climate policy architectures"--

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Heather Rogers

In Green Gone Wrong environmental writer Heather Rogers blasts through the marketing buzz of big corporations and asks a simple question: Do today's much-touted "green" producers - carbon offsets, organic, food, biofuels, and eco-friendly cars and homes - really work? Implicit in efforts to go green is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty goods for "clean" ones. But can earth-friendly products really save the planet? This narrative explores how the most readily available solutions to environmental crisis may be disastrously off the mark. Rogers travels the world tracking how the conversion from a "perro" to a "green" society affects the most fundamental aspects of life - food, shelter, and transportation. Reporting from some of the most remote places on earth, Rogers uncovers shocking results that include massive clear-cutting, destruction of native ecosystems, and grinding poverty. Relying simply on market forces, people with good intentions wanting to just "do something" to help the planet are left feeling confused and powerless. Green Gone Wrong reveals a fuller story, taking the reader into forests, fields, factories, and boardrooms around the world to draw out the unintended consequences, inherent obstacles, and successes of eco-friendly consumption. What do the labels "USDA Certified Organic" and "Fair Trade" really mean on a vast South American export-driven organic farm? A superlow-energy "eco-village" in Germany's Black Forest demonstrates that green homes dramatically shrink energy use, so why aren't we using this technology in America? The decisions made in Detroit's executive suites have kept Americans driving gas-guzzling automobiles for decades, even as U.S. automakers have European models that clock twice the mpg. This expose pieces together a global picture of what's happening in the name of today's environmentalism. Rogers casts a sober eye on what's working and what's not.--

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Christian de Perthuis

"Since the publication of the Stern Review, economists have started to ask more normative questions about climate change. Should we act now or tomorrow? What is the best theoretical carbon price to reach long-term abatement targets? How do we discount the long-term costs and benefits of climate change? This provocative book argues that these are the wrong sorts of questions to ask because they don't take into account the policies that have already been implemented. Instead, it urges us to concentrate on existing policies and tools by showing how the development of carbon markets could dramatically reduce world greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, triggering policies to build a new low-carbon energy system while restructuring the way agriculture interacts with forests. This provides an innovative new perspective on how a post-Kyoto international climate regime could emerge from agreements between the main GHG emitters capping their emissions and building an international carbon market"--

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Michael Albert

"Something is profoundly wrong with capitalism. Vast inequalities of wealth and power will not take the world to a better future. 'What is the alternative?' is a question echoing all around the globe. Michael Albert has wrestled with this question for many years, and his answer regarding economics has captured the imagination of many. 'Participatory Economics' - 'Parecon' for short - Albert's proposed economic system to replace capitalism, rejects competitive anti-sociality, individualist greed, commercial homogenization, and corporate hierarchy, and in their place elevates solidarity, equity, diversity, and self-management." "In Realizing Hope, Albert goes further to offer insights about how whole areas of life might be desirably transformed in a new society. Whether exploring the way we work, our relationship to the earth, the transformation of global financial institutions, science, technology, the family, culture, sport, art, or education, people rather than profit always take centre stage."--Jacket.