Andy Howes Geo 447 Dr.

Buckley The Bridge at the Edge of the World

The beginning of The Bridge at the Edge of the World was an overview of the major causes and results of environmental degradation. It goes into some detail about the loss of forests, land, air quality, water, and biodiversity. I found this section to be the same stuff environmentalists have been writing about for years, I understand that in order to start a book like this it is necessary to outline the problem, but I feel like Ive heard it all before. That being said, the portion on reaching the tipping point was interesting. Speth quoted a NASA climate scientist who said, The warming has brought us to the precipice of a great tipping point. If we go over the edge, it will be a transition to a different planet. I have some doubts about this statement, however I felt it was a good way to bring attention to how huge the consequences will be if things dont change soon. Early on the book points out that capitalism is the root of most environmental degradation. Speth shows how growth is a major component of the capitalist system and how growth is also the leading factor to environmental harm (p. 54). In this section Speth also mentions how markets dont reflect the true costs of goods. By this he means that the pollution and other byproducts that are associated in producing goods are not factored in to the price of the good. I see this as one of the major flaws of capitalism because the company producing the good (and harming the environment) is allowed to profit off resources they do not own; while degrading its value for everyone else that uses them. This is a fatal flaw of capitalism because in the process of letting a few people take advantage of the commons, it devalues the commons for the majority, thus keeping the rich richer and the poor poorer. In this way it also gives incentive for companies to take advantage of the commons because the more externalities a company produces, the cheaper their cost is to produce the good. The book goes on to explain the modern environmental movement. The point Speth makes that stood out most to me was that in the last thirty to forty years there have been large gains made in putting limits on pollutants and protecting environments and wildlife, but capitalism is still undermining these environmental gains. I say this because the laws that are in place, in essence, put limits and restrictions on individual companies and not entire industries as a whole. By doing this it restricts company A from producing as many pollutants but does not stop company B and C from opening up and producing the same amount of pollutants as company A. In the long run this type of system doesnt lessen the amount of pollutants entering the ecosystem, it just creates more companies producing smaller amounts of pollutants individually, but as a whole producing more. This again comes back to capitalism and its emphasis on equating growth with success. This leads me to the next section of the book I would like to discuss, which is entitled Promoting the Well-Being of People and Nature. This section toys around with the idea of what really makes human beings happy. From this section I found Speth stressing how capitalism has contorted Americans views and approaches to happiness. In the last fifty years or so this has

become more and more evident. Speth shows that income is not a good indicator for happiness (p. 134), but that the need for more income and growth are replacing what truly makes people happy: strong relationships, job security, family, and health. I couldnt agree more with Speth on this observation. During my teenage years I had come to a similar conclusion about American society. At the time, and still today, I felt that most Americans werent truly happy. I say this because when I looked around I saw what looked to me as people trying to buy happiness by surrounding themselves with material possessions. This desire to own the nicest things has been engrained into my generation. If my generation is to combat environmental degradation with any success, it will need to change its values on consumption. When reading this book I was hoping that Speth was going to produce substantive answers to how the capitalist system can be changed in order to save the environment. However, I felt his section entitled Seedbeds of Change was pretty weak. His belief that through co-ops, credit unions, NPOs, charities and the trend of city and state ownership ( which I dont know if such a trend really exists and is not supported in the book by evidence) that real substantive change will occur (p.193) . These organizations make up too small a percentage of the total economy to do any transformative change (which is called for earlier in the book). The problem I see with these seedbeds of change is that they, for the most part, are done on a voluntary basis, which Speth showed doesnt work when he discusses why the green marketplace hasnt fared better. In that discussion Speth showed that people, left to their own devices, dont opt for change and that voluntary environmentalism wont work on the grand scale because the majority of people dont take action on their own accord. In Speths defense he does end the book with a two part section called Seedbeds of Transformation where he proposes how society will shift to environmental responsibility. In the last section of the book Speth calls for a new consciousness and political structure for society in order to live in a world which is environmentally aware and respectful. The chapter on a new consciousness points out human faults like greed, anthropocentrism, narcissism, and other non-virtuous traits and says that they need to be changed into compassion, altruism, tolerance etc (p. 207). I found this to be very idealistic, without much practical use coming from it. Of course if everyone believed in love and compassion then the world would be a better place, but it is not a reality. Speth says that achieving this new consciousness will come by way of social movements, religion, and education. I agree with Speth that these are the means to change a way society thinks, especially through social movements and education, not so much religion because it is not conducive to change, but I still question how much these systems of change can do it terms of changing the human conscious. I look at the Occupy Wall Street movement and how it brought a lot of capitalisms problems to the forefront of the media, but has already been put by the wayside by most of society only months later. In addition to changing societies consciousness, Speth says that a new political structure is also needed. For the most part he wants corporate influence out of politics and to rearrange political power to be more localized and also more globalized, in which he applied the term glocalization. I appreciate what

Speth is trying to do here by calling for more localized government because local government is more efficient and is better at serving the needs of its people than larger governments, but his ideas of global politics is a little too farfetched. I dont really see politics working out smoothly when applied on a multi-nation level. I look at the European Union and its impending demise due to too many interests trying to be served under one system. However, I do agree that something needs to be done on a global level because todays environmental problems are of the global variety; I just dont think it will work out how he suggests.