8 - Green Sustainability

Summary

Why deal with sustainability last in a book about Green politics that has as its premise the need to place sustainability at the heart of global politics? The answer lies in the question. If the global economy, global security, development, the state and global governance had the achievement of sustainability as one of their overriding rationales and objectives, a separate set of policies, institutions and initiatives to undo, contain and offset the excesses of industrial society would not be necessary. There would be no need, in other words, for global environmental policies and regimes. The fact that they exist is an indictment of a system and a society living beyond its means and in unsustainable ways. This chapter develops Green critiques of unsusustainable development and more top-downmmethods of'managing' the environment before articulating Green visions of sustainability and ends with reflections on strategies involving law and protest to reform of the state and the pursuit of just transitions.