Nature's Revenge: Reclaiming Sustainability in an Age of Corporate Globalization

Extract

Nature's Revenge: Reclaiming Sustainability in an Age of Corporate Globalization, Josée Johnston, Michael Gismondi, and James Goodman, eds., Peterborough: Broadview Press and Garamond Press, 2006, pp. 330.

In the 20 years since the Bruntland Commission popularized the notion of “sustainable development,” many have questioned whether this ambitious idea has any serious potential for realization or if it stands as a rhetorical mask for a policy of meagre reform. Such concerns are understandable, given how the ongoing challenges of global ecological change and the continuing imperatives of development leave us no justifiable alternative. Nobody would propose “unsustainable” development, whatever the ecological and human effects. But sustainability remains difficult to foresee, as it represents a journey into an unknown, with little in the way of a map to guide those who seek this path.