Global Ecology

A New Arena of Political Conflict

Edited by Wolfgang Sachs

Behind the public’s hope of effective action by governments on environmental issues lie a complex terrain of conceptual confusion, conflicts of interest and philosophical dispute. This is hwy some of the world’s leading environmental thinkers have come together in this volume to probe critically the new languages being developed by the environmental professionals.
    The examine the contradictions inherent in the fashionable notion of sustainable development. They explore the emerging conflicts over the distribution of environmental risks between North and South. And they warn threat “global ecology” seen in a managerial perspective, may degenerate into an effort to redesign and manage Nature in order to keep economic growth going in the face of a rising tide of resource plunder and pollution.
    This book seeks to launch a critical debate in order to clarify the issues involved and what might constitute appropriate action.   

About the Author

Wolfgang Sachs, Ph.D., is a German researcher and author with many books including Fair Future, Environment and Human Rights, and Jo’burg Memo. He is also the editor of the Development Dictionary.
He suggests (see Sachs, 1996) three ways to reach sustainable development, three perspectives which are related to a security crisis: the home perspective, the perspective of an astronaut, and the endogenous perspective.
He is currently working and lecturing at the Wuppertal Institute in Germany. He is the head of the Cross-cutting Project “Globalization and Sustainability” and PhD Collegium “Environment and Fairness in the World Trade Regime” in the Wuppertal Institute.
Wolfgang Sachs is known as one of the many followers of Ivan Illich. His critical works on development idea influenced the green and ecological movements. Sachs participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2007.