麻豆传媒

From the Supreme Court to the White House, Gus Speth helped shape US environmental policy. But, as he tells Liz Else, green values stand no chance against market capitalism

When did you first realise that the environment was in trouble?

I was 12. There was a lake in the mountains of North Carolina where I used to go with my grandparents. We arrived one summer and found that a tannery had dumped its waste into a river that flowed into the lake. The whole thing stank to high heaven and frothed around the edges. I鈥檒l never forget it.

But you read law not science?

Yes, but then in the late 1960s when I was finishing law school a group of us got together and created what became the . This was a public interest, non-profit environmental law firm. It鈥檚 still doing fabulously today.

What kind of cases did you take?

The US had just passed the , which meant all federal projects had to have an environmental impact statement. We used it to challenge a series of destructive federal projects, from water projects to offshore drilling. I even helped to trip up the .

Were you able to continue that work when you joined Jimmy Carter鈥檚 administration in 1977?

I was principal environmental adviser at the White House, and we were trying to undo a lot of destructive water development projects. But I鈥檓 most proud of the fact that we pushed the global warming issue hard, starting in 1979. Carter took it very seriously and I think he would have done something had he stayed in office. I have a copy of a news story in The New York Times in which I called for capping carbon dioxide concentrations at 50 per cent above pre-industrial levels. We鈥檙e likely to fly right past that number shortly.

You later headed the . Wasn鈥檛 that a big change from the environment?

We were mainly concerned about world poverty, but the environment was central to that, in terms of conserving the resources people depend on. Our mantra became 鈥渟ustainable human development鈥�.

After decades of work on the environment, you鈥檝e painted a bleak picture in your latest book. Why?

I was trying to get to grips with a paradox: the environmental community is stronger, better funded and more sophisticated than ever, so why is the environment going downhill so far that we face the prospect of a ruined planet?

What do you think?

My conclusion is that we鈥檙e trying to do environmental policy and activism within a system that is simply too powerful. It鈥檚 today鈥檚 capitalism, with its overwhelming commitment to growth at all costs, its devolution of tremendous power into the corporate sector, and its blind faith in a market riddled with externalities. And it is also our own pathetic capitulation to consumerism. Even as the environmental community swims more strongly against the current, the current gets ever stronger and more treacherous, so environmentalism slips under. The only solution is to get out of the water, take a hard look at what鈥檚 going on and figure what needs to be done to change today鈥檚 capitalism.

Can we can really reform capitalism?

Only if the issues I鈥檝e dwelled on in become a subject of widespread discussion. The environmental community, at least in the US, is weak when it comes to talking about lifestyle changes, about consumption, and it is reluctant to challenge growth or the power of corporations. A lot of the big issues have political immunity. We need a new political movement in the US to drive this.

What should a movement like this be aiming for?

The economy we have now is an inherently rapacious and ruthless system. It is up to citizens to inject values that reflect human aspirations rather than just making money. But groups, whether they鈥檙e concerned about social issues, social justice, the environment or effective politics, are failing because they鈥檙e not working together. I want to see them join into one hopefully powerful political force.

Are there recent models of this 鈥渃oming together鈥�?

The US civil rights movement of the 1960s. People would have to be willing to take those kinds of risks.

How do you sell capitalism without growth?

The US has been growing between 3 and 3.5 per cent a year for a long time. Is there some growth dividend that鈥檚 being put into better social conditions and services? No. Is it being spent protecting our environment? No. It鈥檚 a snare and a delusion. We have enough money, we are just spending it poorly. To invoke growth as a solution creates barriers to dealing with the real problems.

鈥淲e have enough money, we鈥檙e just spending it poorly鈥�

What things do need to grow?

In the US we have huge social needs to meet, sustainable industries to create, technologies to grow, decent healthcare to create. We need to focus on those things and not sacrifice them to growing the aggregate economy. I鈥檓 not advocating state socialism, but I am advocating a non-socialist alternative to today鈥檚 capitalism. If we took one-tenth of 1 per cent of what we spend on trying to prop up the current system, and put it into exploring the future, we鈥檇 be making good progress.

Read more about sustainable growth in our special report