Gus Speth has advised two presidents, clerked for a Supreme Court justice, run the UN Development Program and is now an Environmental Policy professor at Yale. For decades, he has been at the forefront of battles to protect the environment, and helped nurture many of the groups which today claim the mantle of the US environmental movement.
But lately, he's been rethinking this movement's strategy to gain access in Washington and the State Houses of the land. “For the most part, advocates for change have worked within the current system of political economy, but in the end, this approach will not succeed when what is needed is transformative change in the system itself,” he says. “Environmentalists and other progressives have gone down the path of incremental reform for decades, and the results of that experiment are in. […] It’s time for a large amount of civic unreasonableness.”
The sole effective strategy he sees, which delivers both a responsible government and socially and environmentally sustainable economy, is “a fusion of those concerned about environment, social justice, and political democracy into one progressive force.” Fortunately, the GJC’s labor unions, community groups and environmental campaigners are pulling together at least two of those movements, and helping develop the foundation of a new economy driven by societal well-being.
http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/619
