2002
Blue Planet Prize
Professor Harold A. Mooney(U.S.A.)

Professor James Gustave Speth(U.S.A.)

Professor, Department of Biological Sciences,
Stanford University

Dean and Professor, School of Forestry andEnvironmental Studies, Yale University

The Forest:
Our planet is the mother of alllife. She cares for all new life
with love and affection. In 2002,
at the 11th annual Blue Planet
Prize Awards Ceremony, theopening film tried to show oureffort at rediscovering the treasure trove of wisdom composedby myriad creatures that inhabit
it; the forest, and through them
the joy of living.

5

His Imperial Highness Prince Akishino congratulates the laureates

Their Imperial Highnesses
Prince and Princess Akishinoat the Congratulatory Party

Hiromichi Seya,chairman of theFoundation delivers
the opening address

Dr. Jiro Kondo,
chairman of theSelection
Committee
explains therationale for thedetermination of
the year's
winners

Blue Planet Prize Commemorative Lectures

Howard H. Baker
Jr., Ambassadorof the UnitedStates of America
to Japan,congratulates thelaureates

The prizewinners receive their trophies from Chairman Seya

Prof. Harold A. Mooney

6

Prof. James Gustave Speth

Profile

Professor James Gustave Speth
Dean and Professor, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University

Prof. James Gustave Speth
Education and Academic and Professional Activities
1942
Born in South Carolina, U.S.A.
1964
Graduates from Yale University
1966
Graduates from Oxford University (Economics)
1969
Graduates from Yale University Law School
1970-1977 Senior Attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council
1976
National Wildlife Federation’s Resources Defense Award
1977-1981 Member of U.S. President’s Council on Environmental Quality(1979-1981 Served as Chairman of the Council)
1982
Establishes World Resources Institute (WRI)
1982-1993 President, WRI
1992
Natural Resources Council of America’s Barbara Swain Award of Honor
1993-1999 Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
1997
Special Recognition Award (Society for International Development)
1998
Decorated by the Governments of Senegal and Morocco
1999
Environmental Law Institute Lifetime Achievement Award
1999-present Dean, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University

Professor Speth was raised as the son of a farm machinery dealer in the cotton-growing areaof South Carolina and after public schools there went on to graduate from Yale University with
top marks in political science. Later, after studying economics as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford
University, he graduated from Yale University’s law school in 1969. During the late 1960s,
when student movements around the world were seeking to promote public welfare, hedecided to focus his energies on public interest law and to create a new non-profit legal group
to defend the environment.
He enlisted a group of students and faculty at Yale Law School and helped to establish
the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in 1970. Drawing on the latest science andeconomic understanding, he initiated the lawsuits that led to the regulation of toxic water pollutants, the protection of freshwater wetlands, and termination of the plutonium breeder
nuclear reactor program in the United States. For three decades, NRDC has had a major impact
on protecting environmental quality.
After his role in NRDC was recognized, he was appointed to President Carter’s Council

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on Environmental Quality and became the chair in 1979. At CEQ, he brought the threat ofglobal climate change to public attention and called repeatedly for action to forestall global
warming. In 1980, the Council released the landmark Global 2000 Report, a government survey that linked available data and computer models to analyze population, environment, anddevelopment conditions likely at the start of the 21st century. The report pointed out that in theyear 2000, the global environment could face difficult prospects including population pressures, heightened pollution, and resource degradation. Global 2000 Report was widely hailed
and became a fundamental reference.
In 1982, he founded the non-profit research organization, the World Resources Institute(WRI), and served as its president for over a decade. The Washington-based WRI is a thinktank that addresses the fundamental question of how societies can achieve development thatsatisfies human needs while sustaining the natural environment. WRI also provides technicalguidance and assistance to governments and NGOs in developing nations interested in sustainable natural resource management. It is particularly active in policy research related to theprevention of global warming and the maintenance of biodiversity. At the Rio Earth Summit,
it contributed to the adoption of important treaty articles related to both these topics.
In 1993, he was appointed to head the United Nations Development Programme(UNDP), which has offices in more than 130 developing countries and an annual budget ofover $2 billion. In the Human Development Report released in 1994, he advocated a new concept of “human security” that included environmental security. This concept of global humansecurity addresses common problems that threaten human safety, such as narcotics, terrorism,
communicable diseases, environmental destruction, natural resource depletion, natural disasters, ethnic conflict, and refugee outflows.
In 1999, Professor Speth was appointed Dean of the Yale University School of Forestry
and Environmental Studies where he is seeking to build the first truly global school of the environment and to train a new generation of environmental leaders from around the world, goals
to which he brings a wealth of experience.

45

EssayThe Heart of the Matter
Professor James Gustave Speth
Central to the mission of America’s environmental schools is the development of professional
environmental managers. The majority of our graduate students at Yale are in our Master ofEnvironmental Management program. But what exactly is environmental management?
When I am asked this question, I reply that environmental management is the new business of bringing our human enterprise into harmony with the natural world of which we are apart. And I add: It’s the most important thing in the world.
I know this may sound exaggerated, but I think the truth of this statement will become
clear in the years ahead. The enormous expansion of the human enterprise in recent decades
has brought us to the threshold of a fundamentally new era in which environmental management must quickly emerge as the number one priority of governments and peoples everywhere.
Consider first that environmental losses are already great. Half the world’s tropical andtemperate forests are gone. Half the wetlands and a third of the mangroves are gone. Ninety
percent of the large predator fish are gone, and 75 percent of marine fisheries are now overfished or fished to capacity. Twenty percent of the corals are gone, and another 20 percent
severely threatened. Species are disappearing at rates 100 to 1000 times normal. Most agricultural land in drier regions suffers from serious deterioration. Persistent toxic chemicals can
now be found by the dozens in essentially each and every one of us.
Consider also that human activities are now large relative to natural systems. We
severely depleted the earth’s stratospheric ozone layer without knowing it. We have pushedatmospheric carbon dioxide up by one-third and started the dangerous process of warming theplanet and disrupting climate. Everywhere earth’s ice fields are melting. We are fixing nitrogen at a rate equal to nature’s; one result is the development of at least 150 dead zones in theoceans due to overfertilization. We already consume or destroy each year about 40 percent of
nature’s photosynthetic output, leaving too little for other species. Freshwater withdrawals
doubled globally between 1960 and 2000 and are now approaching a quarter of all river flow.
The following rivers no longer reach the oceans in the dry season: Colorado, Yellow, Ganges
and the Nile, among others. We live in a full world, dramatically unlike the world of 1900, oreven that of 1950.
Consider also that all we have to do to destroy the planet’s climate and its biota is to keep
doing exactly what we are doing today, even with no growth in the human population or theworld economy. But human activities are growing – dramatically. It took all of history to build
the $7 trillion world economy of 1950, and today we add that amount of economic activity
every 5 to 10 years. The world economy is poised to double and then double again by mid-cen-46

tury. This economic growth cannot resemble the growth of the past; it requires new designs andnew technologies. Everything must be different – construction, manufacturing, energy production, transportation, forestry and agriculture, all very different.
Finally, consider that political, technological and social changes take time. We are now
in the most important race in human history – the race to change our politics, our technology
and our personal consumption choices much faster than the world economy grows. Only
unprecedented action taken with a profound sense of urgency can forestall an appalling deterioration of our natural assets. This is the challenge of environmental management.
To prepare for this race, we are building a new academic field, an inter-discipline called“environment.” It is the rigorous scientific study of the interactions between human societies
and the natural world of the biosphere. Knowledge generated in this new field becomes thebasis for environmental management. We need a new generation of professionals trained inenvironmental management, and we also need the knowledge of environment to infuse the traditional professions – business, law, science and engineering, medicine, and so on – and to
motivate a revolution in personal choice as each of us carries out daily life as consumer, family member, investor, joiner, worshipper, worker, and voter. Environmental management thus
becomes a civic responsibility of the first order.
It is good that we are now in the midst of a necessary and timely paradigm shift in our
thinking about environmental management. In 1970, when the modern era of environmental
concern was born, the environmental style was confrontational; business was the enemy.
Today, we must try to put collaboration ahead of confrontation. Business must be on board, notoverboard. We must all be environmentalists now.
In 1970, we created a separate environmental sector; today, we must make every economic sector an environmental sector. Every government agency must be an environmental
protection agency.
In 1970, it was “put the polluters in a straightjacket.” Today, it is let them out of the regulatory tangle if they can show they have a solution that is better. Then, our approach was command and control; today, it must also be goals and incentives.
In 1970, we were against; today, we must be for. Then, we defined problems; today, wemust design solutions. Then, we responded; today we must anticipate.
In 1970, technology was the devil that got us into this mess. Today, we know that technology– soft and hard – must get us out of this mess. In 1970 it was end of pipe; today we mustend the pipe.
In 1970 we saw an unguided market taking us over the cliff. Now, we know that the market can be guided for environmental as well as economic goals. But that guidance requires government action to get the prices right – environmentally honest prices. Anti-government ideologues would rob us of the power of collective action for our common future.
In 1970, it was environmental protection; today, it is sustainable development – sustainable development in the poorer countries, for we will never sustain the biosphere unless thepoorer countries are realizing their development and anti-poverty objectives, and sustainable
development for the rich, for success at the triple bottom line of environment-economy-society is a more worthy goal than achieving another 3 percent growth in GDP.

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In 1970, it was national; today, it is “glocal.” Pollution has gone global; species havegone global; and so must environmental management. Global governance must come to theenvironment. We need a WEO as strong as the WTO. Environmental diplomacy is not asideshow; it’s the main event. But, in the end, we know that all action is local. Our lives are
local lives. The struggle begins locally.
In 1970, we took a top-down approach; now, we must encourage innovative bottom-up,
grassroots approaches – green jazz that is unscripted, improvisational and creative.
In 1970, we were too elitist. Now we must stress justice and equity: equity among
nations, equity within nations, equity between the sexes, all in addition to equity to future generations. We have created wonderful protected areas but sometimes neglected the poor, theminorities, the victims, the indigenous peoples. Let their environmental rights now be asserted.
In 1970, it was species; today it is ecosystems. We should have always known this:Human societies are utterly dependent on provisioning by nature’s ecosystems. But we forgotit.
We must at long last take Aldo Leopold and his land ethic seriously. “A thing is right,”
he said, “when it tends to preserve the integrity, beauty and stability of the biotic community.”
Just as we have rights, the land community does also.
In 1970, we looked for government leadership. Today, we must often do it ourselves,
with or without government. Business is often ahead of government; scientists are often aheadof government; consumers and environmentalists are often ahead of government. We should
not wait for government. We must push it forward with us. Politicians ride the waves, as everyone knows. Citizens make waves.
In 1970, we were from Mars; today, we must be from Venus. Then, we broke things
down to the component parts and laid out rational plans of attack. Now we know the mostimportant resource is human motivation – hope, caring, our feelings about nature and our fellow humans. Today we need the preachers, the philosophers, the psychologists, and the poets!
In one poem, W.S. Merwin said: “On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree.”And in another: “I want to tell you what the forests were like/I will have to speak a forgotten
language.”“After the final no,” Wallace Stevens wrote, “there comes a yes. And on that yes the
future of the world depends.” Despite the daunting projections of environmental decline, weaffirm that we will win this struggle for the future. Yes.
And here we come full circle, for there is something vital from 1970 that we need torekindle and rebuild, rather than move beyond, and that is the extraordinary spirit of thatmoment and the widespread popular demand for far-reaching change. One can hear thatdemand plainly in the words citizens of Santa Barbara sent to the U.S. Congress in 1970
shortly after the devastating oil spill there: “We, therefore, resolve to act. We propose a revolution in conduct toward the environment…Today is the first day of the rest of our life on thisplanet. We will begin anew.”
It can seem that we are now a long way from the prosaic subject of environmental management, but we are actually at the heart of the matter.

48

Lecture

Coming to Terms
with Global Environmental Deterioration
Professor James Gustave Speth
I should begin by expressing my great appreciation in receiving the Blue Planet Prize. It is anhonor indeed to receive this Prize from such a distinguished organization and to join Harold
Mooney and the other extraordinary individuals and groups that have been previously recognized by you. I am deeply grateful.
A great tragedy is fast unfolding. Over 20 years ago the alarm was sounded regarding a
set of linked threats to the global environment. Today, the rates of environmental deteriorationthat stirred the international community 20 years ago continue essentially unabated. The steps
that governments have taken over these two decades represent the first attempt at global environmental governance. It is an experiment that has failed.
It would be comforting to think that all the international negotiations, summit and conference agreements, conventions and protocols have at least got us to the point where we areprepared to act decisively – comforting but wrong. The problems have gone from bad toworse; we are not yet prepared to deal with them; and, at present, some major countries lackthe leadership to get prepared.
The Global 2000 Report
Global-scale environmental challenges first moved into politics in the US when President
Carter asked a group of us in his administration to prepare what became the 1980 Global 2000
Report to the President. Our task was to sketch what trends might unfold between 1980 and2000 in population and environment if societies stayed with a business-as-usual approach.
Now, from the perspective of 2002, we can look back and see what actually happened.
First, Global 2000 projected that population would grow from 4 billion to 6.3 billion by
2000. The actual number was 6 billion, so we were more or less on target. The report projectedthat deforestation in the tropics would occur at rates in excess of an acre a second, and fortwenty years, an acre a second, that is what has happened. It projected that 15 to 20 percent of
all species could be extinct by 2000, mostly due to tropical deforestation. Stuart Pimm andPeter Raven have recently estimated conservatively that there are about seven million speciesof plants and animals. Two-thirds of these species are in the tropics, largely in the tropicalhumid forests. They estimated that half the tropical forests have been lost and, with them, thatabout 15 percent of tropical forest species have already been doomed. So there is evidence that
our species loss estimate was not far off the mark.
The report projected that about 6 million hectares a year of drylands, an area about thesize of Maine, would be rendered barren by the various processes we describe as desertifica-

49

tion. And that continues to be a decent estimate today.
We predicted that:“Rising CO2 concentrations are of concern because of their potential for causing a
warming of the earth… the doubling of the CO2 content of the atmosphere could be expected
after the middle of the next century…The result could be significant alterations of precipitation patterns around the world, and a 2 degree to 3 degree Celsius rise in temperatures in the
middle latitudes of the earth.”
Twenty-two years later, this description still falls neatly within the range of current estimates.
In other words, the basics about emerging global-scale environmental concerns were
known more than 20 years ago. Some projections, like those on the prices of food and minerals, Global 2000 got wrong, but on most of the big issues of population, environment anddevelopment, the report pointed squarely to the trend and the stakes. Other reports – from theUnited Nations Environment Programme, the Worldwatch Institute, and elsewhere – were
saying much the same around this time. So, political leaders and others were on notice twenty
years ago that there was a new environmental agenda, more global, more threatening and moredifficult than the agenda that spurred the environmental awakening of the late 1960’s and early
1970’s.
Major Global-Scale Environmental Challenges
Today, our information on global environmental trends is far more complete and sophisticated,
but it is not more reassuring.
• Half the tropical forests are gone, and non-OECD countries are projected to lose
another 10 percent of their forests by 2020. But this data gives an unduly rosy picture.
Cryptic deforestation – the cumulative impacts of fire, El Nino-driven drought, andfragmentation in major forest areas, such as those in Brazil and Borneo – greatly exacerbate the effects of forest clearing. And much of what’s left is under contract for logging. Eighty percent of Borneo’s forest cover is said to be allocated to commercial
logging and plantations.
• A fourth of bird species are extinct, and another 12 percent are listed as threatened.
Also threatened are 24 percent of mammals, 25 percent of reptiles and amphibians,
and 30 percent of fish species. The rate of extinction of birds and mammals today isestimated at 100-1000 times the natural background rate.
• We are now appropriating, wasting, or destroying about 40 percent of nature’s net photosynthetic product annually. This does not leave much for other species. We are consuming about half the available fresh water. Most people will soon live in water
stressed areas. We are fixing nitrogen at rates that exceed nature’s, and among themany consequences of the resulting overfertilization are fifty dead zones in the oceans,
one in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey.
• Globally, we have lost a third of agricultural land due to soil deterioration over the last
forty years.

50• In 1960 five percent of marine fisheries were either fished to capacity or overfished.
Today 70 percent of marine fisheries are in this condition.
• Half of the world’s mangroves and wetlands have been destroyed.
• Hardest hit of all are freshwater ecosystems around the globe.
On top of these processes of biotic impoverishment comes the biggest threat of all,global climate change. Few Americans appreciate how close we are in the United States to thewidespread changes in the American landscape. The best current estimate is that, absent majorcorrective action, global warming over the lifetime of an American born today will likely
make it impossible for about half the American land to sustain the types of plants and animals
now on that land. A huge portion of our protected areas – everything from wooded lands heldby community conservancies to our national parks, forests, and wilderness – is now threatened.
In one projection, the much-loved maple-beech-birch forests of New England simply disappear. In another, much of the Southeast becomes a huge grassland savannah unable to support
forests because it is too hot and dry.
Underlying Forces Driving Deterioration
We know what is driving these global trends. The much used “IPAT equation” sees environmental Impact as a product of the size of human Populations, our Affluence and consumption
patterns, and the Technology we deploy to meet our perceived needs. What this useful IPAT
formulation can obscure, in addition to the impacts of poverty, is the vast and rapidly growing
scale of the human enterprise. It took all of history for the world economy to grow to $6 trillion in 1950. Today, it grows by more than that every five to ten years. Since 1960, gross world
product has doubled, and then doubled again.
Today the world economy is poised to double and then double again in the lifetimes oftoday’s students. We could not stop this growth if we wanted to, and most of us would not stop
it if we could. Half the world’s people live on less than $2 per day. They both need anddeserve something better. Economic expansion at least offers the potential for better lives,though its benefits in recent decades have been skewed.
There are good reasons to believe that the next doubling of world economic activity will
differ in some respects from the growth of the past. But there are equally good reasons tobelieve that the next doubling of the world economy will, from an environmental perspective,
look a lot like the last. The U.S. Energy Information Agency predicts a 65 percent increase inglobal CO2 emissions between 2000 and 2020. The OECD estimates that its members’ CO2emissions will go up by about a third percent during this period. Motor vehicle use in OECD
countries is expected to rise by 40 percent by 2020.
The Challenge Today
The implications of all this are very profound. We have entered the endgame in our traditional,
historical relationship with the natural world. The current Nature Conservancy campaign has
an appropriate name: they are seeking to protect The Last Great Places. One senses that we arein a rush to the finish. Soon, metaphorically speaking, whatever is not protected will be paved.
The work of Pimm and Raven suggests that the loss of half the tropical forests costs us

51

15 percent of the species there. But further forest destruction will be disproportionately costly.
More generally, attacks on the environment will be increasingly consequential. Whateverslack nature cut us is gone.
Humans dominate the planet today, as never before. We live in a full world. We impact
hugely on the great life support systems of the planet. Nature as something independent of us
is dead. We are in a radically new ethical position because we are at the planetary controls.
Limits of Environmental Governance to Date
Looking back, it cannot be said my generation did nothing in response to Global 2000 and similar alerts. Progress has been made on some fronts. There are outstanding success stories, butrarely have initiatives been commensurate with the problem. For the most part, we have analyzed, debated, discussed, negotiated these issues endlessly. My generation is a generation, I
fear, of great talkers, overly fond of conferences. But on action, we have fallen far short. As aresult, the threatening global trends highlighted 20 years ago are still very much with us, depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer being the notable exception.
But if we have not actually done much, perhaps we have in these 20 years laid a goodfoundation for rapid and effective action today. Perhaps all the international conferences,
treaties and action plans have given us the policies and programs we now need, and we can atlast get on with it. Here we arrive at a second set of distressing trends, those in the area of policy and institutional development.
The results of twenty years of international environmental negotiations are, if truth betold, rather limited. It is not that what has been agreed, for example, in the framework conventions on climate, desertification and biodiversity, is wrong or useless. Those conventions
have raised awareness and stimulated some useful national planning exercises. But thesetreaties are mostly frameworks for action: they do not drive the changes that are needed. And
the same can be said for the extensive international discussions on world forests, which havenever reached the point of a treaty. In general, international environmental law and its 250
treaties is plagued by vague agreements, minimal requirements, lax enforcement and underfunded support.
The weakness of those international treaties should not be a surprise, given that they
were forged in negotiating processes that give maximum leverage to any country with an interest in protecting the status quo. Similarly, the international institutions created in the United
Nations to address these issues – the United Nations Environment Programme and ECOSOC’s
Commission on Sustainable Development – are among the weakest multilateral organizations
and are presumably kept that way intentionally.
A deeper question is whether we are on the right track with the current emphasis on
negotiating global agreements. My own view is that we have badly over-invested in international environmental law to the neglect of other approaches, including measures that would
enhance the prospects for effective agreements.
The Kyoto Protocol is an effort to step beyond the framework and reach a binding,action-forcing agreement on climate change. There are three things one can say in favor of the
Kyoto Protocol:

52• A bird in hand is worth two in the bush;• sooner the world gets a clear signal that the industrial nations have capped CO2 emissions, the better;• The developing countries are correct in wanting to see the industrial countries act firstand most, and the Kyoto Protocol takes this approach.
These are powerful considerations, and the Bush Administration should join with therest of the world in supporting this agreement. It is deplorable that it has not, and, unfortunately, the Administration’s recently announced climate initiative would allow U.S. emissions
to rise at the same rate they did for the past decade.
That said, we must guard against letting debates about the Kyoto Protocol deflect attention from addressing the long-term challenge of holding cumulative global emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases below certain levels. Also, we still have a long way
to go to make the protocol’s flexibility mechanisms, land use provisions and other difficult andcomplex provisions actually work effectively in the real world.
The bottom line, in any case, is that however one looks at the matter, we are in poor
shape when it comes to climate policy. The twenty years have not been put to very good use.
Promoting the Transition to Sustainability
How then should we move forward? I believe there are seven dimensions where progress,
indeed transformation, is necessary to achieve sustainability. There are hopeful developmentsin each of these seven areas, and we should build on them. We should be promoting these transitions – investing much more heavily in them – because they address directly the underlying
drivers of large-scale environmental deterioration.
The first of these transitions to sustainability is the need for an early demographic transition to a stable world population. Here there is definite progress. The mid-range projection
for 2050 was recently 10 billion people; now it is 9 billion. One projection of developing country population in 2100 was 10.2 billion. Analyses suggest that an escalation of provenapproaches could reduce this number to 7.3 billion, with global population leveling off at 8.5
billion. The main need here is adequate funding for the United Nations’ Cairo Plan of Action,
which is being underfunded by half.
The second transition is the human development transition to a world without masspoverty, where the prospects for widely shared prosperity are good. Environmentally, we needthis transition, first, because over much of the world poverty is an important destroyer of environment; the poor have no choices other than to lean too heavily on a declining resource base.
But we also need this transition because the only world that works is one in which the aspirations of poor people and poor nations for fairness and justice are being realized. Developing
country views in international negotiations on environment are powerfully shaped by fear of
the costs of environmental measures, preoccupation with their own compelling economic andsocial challenges, and distrust of industrial country intentions and policies. Sustained and sustainable human development provides the only context in which there is enough confidence,trust, and hope to ground the difficult measures needed to realize environmental objectives.
There is some good news to report on the development front. An impressive consensus

53has emerged around objectives. The international community has come together with a concerted commitment to the goal of halving the incidence of absolute poverty by 2015. This goal
and others dealing with health and education were endorsed by all governments in theMillennium Assembly of the United Nations. Eliminating large-scale poverty is no longer an
impossible dream. It could be accomplished in the lifetimes of today’s young people. But, aswith population, a serious threat to achieving these goals is limited development assistance, inthis case compounded by protectionist trade regimes, and heavy debt burdens.
The third transition is a transition in technology to a new generation of environmentallybenign technologies. We need a worldwide environmental revolution in technology. The only
way to reduce pollution and resource consumption while achieving expected economic growthis to bring about a wholesale transformation in the technologies that today dominate manufacturing, energy, transportation, and agriculture.
The good news here is that across a wide front, technologies that would bring about avast improvement are either available or soon can be. From 1990 to 1998, when oil and natural gas use grew globally at a rate of 2 percent annually, and coal consumption grew not at all,wind energy grew at an annual rate of 22 percent and photovoltaics at 16 percent. Denmark
now gets eight percent of its energy from wind; Japan last year installed 100 megawatts of photovoltaic power. Transformation of the energy sector must rank as the highest priority.
The fourth transition is a market transition to a world in which prices reflect the fullenvironmental costs. The needed revolution in technology and the equally needed changes in
consumption patterns will not happen unless there is a parallel revolution in pricing. The corrective most needed now is environmentally honest prices. Full cost pricing is everywhere
thwarted today by the failure of governments to eliminate environmentally perverse subsidies(estimated globally at $1.5 trillion) and to ensure that external environmental costs are captured in market prices.
One of the most hopeful developments today is the tax shift idea adopted in Germany
and many other European countries. Moving in four stages starting in 1999, the German policy is to shift the tax burden from something one wants to encourage – work and the wages that
result – to something one wants to discourage – energy consumption and the pollution that
results.
The fifth transition is a transition in consumption from unsustainable patterns to sustainable ones. Here, one very hopeful sign is the emergence of product certification and greenlabeling and public support for it. This trend started with the certification of wood products as
having been produced in sustainably managed forests and has now spread to fisheries and tobuilding design. Increasingly, consumers are voting green in the marketplace, and that is driving change. Another hopeful sign is the new legislation in Europe and Japan requiring that
consumer durables be recycled; some require that manufacturers take back their products when
use is finished.

New Initiatives in Global Environmental Governance
The sixth transition is a transition in governance. The World Business Council for Sustainable54

Development has sketched several broad paths in environmental governance. One they call
“FROG” First Raise Our Growth. Let’s solve our economic challenges first, it says. FROG isa business-as-usual scenario, leading to huge environmental costs, social inequity, and oftensocial instability. It is a failure scenario, even in the eyes of business leaders.
The two other scenarios are success scenarios in which sustainability is vigorously pursued. But they are very different. In one, “GEOPolity,” people turn to government to focus themarket on environmental and social ends and rely heavily on intergovernmental institutions
and treaties.
The final scenario is a “JAZZ” world of unscripted initiatives, decentralized and improvisational. There is abundant information about business behavior; good conduct is enforcedby public opinion and consumer behavior. Governments facilitate; NGOs are very active; business sees strategic advantage in doing right thing.
The initial international response to the global change agenda has been to try to movethe world from FROG to GEOPolity. It isn’t working. Getting serious about governancerequires new action on two mutually supportive fronts:• Pursuing a radically revised approach to GEOPolity• Taking JAZZ to scale
The current world of GEOPolity is a world that is designed to fail. It can be redesigned
for success by insisting on new norm-setting procedures and new institutions, including a
World Environment Organization. The case for an effective WEO is as strong as for an effective WTO. The international community knows how to create plausible multilateral arrangements and has often done so in other, mostly economic, areas.
A second path to the future is to implement measures that can take JAZZ to scale. JAZZ
is the most exciting arena for action today, with an outpouring of bottom-up, unscripted initiatives from business, NGOs, governments, and others.
• Seven large companies – DuPont, Shell, BP Amoco, Alcan among them – have agreed
to reduce their CO2 emissions 15 percent below their 1990 levels by 2010. Indeed,
Alcoa is reported to be on track to reduce its emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels
by 2010, and DuPont is on schedule to reduce emissions by 65 percent.
• Eleven major companies – DuPont, GM, IBM among them – have formed the GreenPower Market Development Group and committed to develop markets for 1000
megawatts of renewable energy over the next decade.
• Home Depot, Lowes, Andersen and others have agreed to sell wood (to the degree it’savailable) only from sustainably managed forests certified by an independent groupagainst rigorous criteria. Unilever, the largest processor of fish in the world, has agreed
to the same regarding fish products.
NGOs had important roles in forging these corporate initiatives. They are the real maestros of JAZZ. Local governments, universities and other entities have also contributed. Over500 local governments have now joined a campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Finally, there is the most fundamental transition of all – a transition in culture and consciousness. Clearly we need new habits of thought – a new world view. Paul Ehrlich recently
wrote that, “Our global civilization had better move rapidly to modify its cultural evolution and55

deal with its deteriorating environmental circumstances before it runs out of time.” He notesthat the potential for conscious evolution is evident in great social movements that societies
have already experienced, such as the abolition of slavery and the civil rights movement. It is
possible that we are seeing the birth of something new – a change of consciousness – in theanti-globalization protests, in the far-reaching and unprecedented initiatives being taken bysome private corporations, in the growth of NGO’s and their innovations, in scientists speaking up and speaking out, and in the outpouring of environmental initiatives by the religious
community. We must certainly hope that something new and vital is afoot. And, ironically,
what may drive this consciousness as much as anything else is the reality of anthropogenic climate change.
These are all hopeful signs, but to be honest we must conclude that we are at the earlystages of the journey to sustainability. Meanwhile, the forward momentum of the drivers ofenvironmental deterioration is great. We are moving rapidly towards a swift and appallingdeterioration of our natural world. Time is the most important variable in the equation of the
future. What we will do tomorrow we should have done yesterday. Only a response that in historical terms would come to be seen as revolutionary is likely to avert these changes.
A phenomenal expansion of economic activity is projected for the decades immediately
ahead. An already full world will soon be very full indeed. Down one path, this growth canprotect, regenerate and restore the environment. It can provide sustainable livelihoods for theworld's poor, and lead to large improvement in the quality of life for all. There is still world
enough and time for this century to see the coming of a future more wondrous, intimate, andbountiful than our scenarios can imagine. But this world will not be won without a profoundcommitment to urgent action. President Kennedy often told the story of the aged Marshal
Lyautey of France debating with his gardener about planting a certain tree.
"It will not bloom," the gardener argued, "for decades.""Then," said the marshal, "plant it this afternoon."Thank you.

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Major Publications
Professor James Gustave Speth
Publications
Global Environmental Governance (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2006) (with Peter Haas).
Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment (New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press,
2004). Translated: German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese. Paperback with new “Afterword” (2005).
Worlds Apart: Globalization and the Environment (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2003).
“A Civic Duty of the First Order,” Global Agenda 2006 (World Economic Forum, 2006), p.202.
“The Heart of the Matter,” Environment: Yale, Fall 2005, p.2.
“The Single Greatest Threat: The United States and Global Climate Disruption,” Harvard International Review,
Summer, 2005. p. 18.
“Why Business Needs Government Action on Climate Change,” World Watch, July/August 2005. p. 30.
“The Kyoto No-Show Can Still Go Green,” YaleGlobal Online, February 16, 2005, at
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id=5281.
“Creating a Sustainable Future: Are We Running Out of Time?” in Robert Olson and David Rejeski,
Environmentalism and the Technologies of Tomorrow (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2005).
“Foreword” to James Rasband et al., Natural Resources Law and Policy (New York: Foundation Press, 2004).
“Business Must Back Sustainability,” Financial Times, October 1, 2004.
“International Environmental Law: Can It Deal with the Big Issues?.” Vermont Law Review, Spring, 2004, p.779.
“Carbon Dioxide Won the Elections,” International Herald Tribune, January 16, 2003.
“Green Republicans: Quo Vadis?” Environment:Yale, November, 2003, p. 2.
“Perspectives on the Johannesburg Summit,” Environment, Vol. 45, No. 1, January/February 2003,
p. 24.
“Dismissing Storm Clouds Not Too Sharp,” New Haven Register, September 25, 2002.
“A New Green Regime: Attacking the Root Causes of Global Environmental Deterioration,” Environment, Vol. 44,
No. 7, September 2002, p. 16.
“The Global Environment: A Program to Avoid Appalling Deterioration,” International Herald Tribune, July 30,
2002.
“Global Environmental Governance: Options and Opportunities,” in D. Esty and M. Ivanova, eds., Global
Environmental Governance: Options and Opportunities (Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies,
2002).
“Recycling Environmentalism,” Foreign Policy, July/August, 2002, p. 74.
“Development Assistance and Poverty,” in J. Dernbach, ed., Stumbling Toward Sustainability (Environmental Law
Institute, 2002).
“Making the World Safer Without Bombs,” Yale Daily News, September 18, 2001.
“Bush Sr. Obligated the U.S. To Act on Global Warming,” International Herald Tribune, May 9, 2001.
“The United States and the Developing Countries in a Globalizing World,” International Review of Environmental
Strategies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2000).
“The Plight of the Poor,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 78, No. 3, May/June 1999.
“A New Deal - Development Assistance in a Global Economy,” Harvard International Review, Winter 1998/1999.
“Debt Relief, Yes, but Development Aid as Well,” International Herald Tribune, May 7, 1999.
“The Neglect of Growing Poverty Poses a Global Threat,” International Herald Tribune, July 17 - 18,
1999.
“Poverty and Environment: Moving the Agenda,” Choices, UNDP, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1999.
“Poverty: A Denial of Human Rights,” Journal of International Affairs, 52, No.1, fall 1998.
“Keep the Focus on Promoting the People of Asia,” International Herald Tribune, January 29, 1998.
“Economic Growth Is an Essential Part of Sustainable Human Development,” The Earth Times, February 16 – 28,
1998.
“Reform, Restructuring, Re-engineering,” The Earth Times, September 16 – 30, 1998.
“Common Interest, Common Sense,” Los Angeles Times, November 10, 1998.
“Development Countries, Too, Are Fighting Global Warming,” International Herald Tribune, November 13, 1998.

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“The United Nations: From Crisis to Development,” Global Aid, January 1997.
“A Leaner and More Efficient UNDP Aims To Fight Global Poverty,” Journal of the Group of 77 at the United
Nations Headquarters, Vol. 10, No. 3 & 4, March/April 1997.
“Europe Provides a Guide to Shrinking World’s Rich-Poor Gap,” International Herald Tribune, February 3, 1997.
“The Foreign Aid Mirage,” The Christian Science Monitor, April 2, 1997.
“UNDP 2001 – Reform for Results,” Development Today, July 23, 1997, Vol. VII, No. 11 – 12.
“Good for Ted Turner, and May He Be Imitated,” International Herald Tribune, October 9, 1997.
“Keeping Promises Made at Rio…,” The Earth Times, October 1 – 15, 1997.
“Listening to the Poor,” The Washington Times, November 25, 1997.
“In Africa, Unattended Poverty Leads to Conflict,” International Herald Tribune, March 21, 1996.
“Two Worlds in Counterflow, or 358 = 2.3 Billion and Counting,” International Herald Tribune, August 23, 1996.
“Development and Security,” The Challenge of Peace, UNRIST, Vol. 3, June 1996.
“The UN, the US, and Development Cooperation: Time for Reunion,” United Nations Chronicle, Vol. XXXIII, No.
4, 1996.
“UNDP’s Mandate Could be Hampered by Declining Resources,” Journal of the Group of 77, Vol. 9 No. 6/7(Special
Edition), September 1996.
“Upheaval in Development,” World Development Aid & Joint Venture Finance, 1995/1996.
“We Need a New, More Comprehensive Framework for Development Cooperation,” The Earth Times, April 15 –29, 1995.
“Wake Up, OECD: Concerted Development Assistance Isn’t Optional,” International Herald Tribune, May 19,
1995.
“Foreign Aid for the Price of Cat Food,” Washington Post, August 6, 1995.
“Defining the Challenge,” United Nations Chronicle, March 22, 1995.
“Climate Change & Development: A Challenge of Commitment,” United Nations Climate Change Bulletin, Issue
8, 3rd Quarter 1995.
“Development Cooperation in Peril: Building New Capacities, Preventing Crises,” United Nations Chronicle, June
1995.
“A New Age of Equity?” Politiken, March 12, 1995.
“The United Nations and International Development: Forging a New Post Cold War Role,” Foundation Day Lecture,
Tata Energy Research Institute, Feb. 3, 1994.
“Towards Sustainable Food Security,” Sir John Crawford Memorial Lecture, Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research, October 25, 1993.
“On the Road to Rio and to Sustainability,” Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 26, No. 6, 1992.
“A New U.S. Program for International Development and the Global Environment,” The American Oxonian, Vol.
LXXIX, No. 1, 1992.
“Double or Nothing: Linking U.S. Economic and Environmental Objectives,” World Resource Institute: Issues andIdeas, November 1992.
“A Post-Rio Compact,” Foreign Policy, No. 88, Fall 1992.
“A New U.S. Program for International Development and the Global Environment,” World Resources Institute,
Issues and Ideas, March 1992.
“The Transition to a Sustainable Society,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 89, February 1992.
“Transitions to a Sustainable Society,” in Human Impact on the Environment: Ancient Roots, Current Challenges(Judith E. Jacobsen & John Firor eds.), 1992.
“Pollution vs. Payrolls: Going for the Gold, A National Strategy for Helping America Clean Up by Cleaning Up,”
Washington Post, October 4, 1992.
“Meeting the North-South Challenge,” Changing America: Blueprints for the New Administration, (M.Green ed.),
1992.
“Partnership for Sustainable Development: A New U.S. Agenda for International Development and Environmental
Security,” Report of an Environmental and Energy Study Institute Task Force (chair), 1991.
“EPA Must Help Lead an Environmental Revolution in Technology,” Environmental Law, Vol. 21, 1991.
“Compact for a New World,” Report of the New World Dialogue on Environment and Development in the Western
Hemisphere, 1991 (principal author).
“An Environmental Revolution in Technology,” Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 24, No. 4, 1990.

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“Environmental Security for the 1990s. . . In Six Not-So-Easy Steps,” World Resources Institute: Issues and Ideas,
January 1990.
“Six Steps Toward Environmental Security,” The Christian Science Monitor, January 22, 1990.
“Coming to Terms: Toward a North-South Bargain for the Environment,” Environment, Vol 32, No. 5, June 1990.
“We Must Pay Full Price for Energy,” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1990.
“Steps Toward Sustainability,” The Earth in Transition, (G. Woodwell Ed.)1990.
“The Global Environmental Agenda,” Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 23, No. 7, July 1989.
“‘Can the World Be Saved?’,” Ecological Economics, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1989.
“EPA and the World Clean-up Puzzle,” EPA Journal, July/August 1989.
“The Global Environmental Challenge,” International Agriculture, Vol. 4, No 3, 1989.
“Turning Point for the Earth,” GAO Journal, No. 6, Summer 1989.
“For North-South Cooperation To Save the Environment,” International Herald Tribune, July 12, 1989.
“The Greening of the Summit: First-World Money and Third-World Ecology Can Prosper Together,” Washington
Post, July 9, 1989.
“Dedicate the 90’s to the Environment: International Commitment Could Be Our Gift to New Century,” Los Angeles
Times, February 1989.
“The Greening of Technology,” Washington Post, November 20, 1988.
“The Greening of Technology,” The Bridge, National Academy of Engineering, Summer 1989.
“Environmental Pollution: A Long-Term Perspective,” Earth ’88: Changing Geographic Perspectives, 1988.
“Introduction,” in Deserts on the March (Paul B. Sears), Island Press, 1988.
“Now, for a Worldwide Phase-Out of CFCs,” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1988.
“The Environmental Dimension to the Debt Crisis: The Problem and Five Proposals,” in Latin America’s Debt
Crisis: Adjusting to the Past or Planning for the Future? (Robert A. Pastor, ed.), 1987.
“A New Environmental Agenda,” Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, Summer, 1986.
“Sweltering in the Greenhouse,” Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1986.
“Environment, Economy, Security: The Emerging Agenda,” Protecting Our Environment, Center for National
Policy, 1985.
“Questions for a Critical Decade,” Columbia Journal of World Business, Vol. XIX, No. 1, Spring, 1984.
“A New Institute for World Resources,” in American Oxonian Vol. LXX, No. 1, 1983.
“What To Expect in the Year 2000,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March, 1981.
“Resources and Security: Perspectives from the Global 2000 Report,” World Future Society Bulletin,
September/October 1981.
“A Gus Speth Reader,” in Huge Nash, ed., Progress As If Survival Mattered (San Francisco: Friends of the Earth,
1981).
“Environmental Regulation: The ImMOBILization of Truth,” in Business and the Environment: Toward Common
Ground. (Kent Gilbreath, ed.), 1980.
“Overview,” A Long-Range Environmental Outlook, National Research Council, 1980.
“Corporate Responsibility and Toxic Chemicals,” in Life After ’80: Environmental Choices We Can Live With (K.
Courrier, ed.) 1980.
“The Need for Federal Involvement,” Environmental Protection Agency Journal, September, 1980.
“The Looming Test for Mankind,” The Living Wilderness, September, 1980.
“Simplifying Compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act,” Sloan Management Review, Summer, 1980
(with Nicholas Yost).
“Our Environmental Future: Four Choices for the 1980’s,” National Journal, January 26, 1980.
“Our Nation’s Water: A Threatened Resource,” Catalyst, Vol. VII, No. 2, 1980.
“The Sisyphus Syndrome: Acid Rain and Public Responsibility,” National Parks and Conservation Magazine,
February, 1980.
“A Small Price To Pay: Inflation and Environmental Controls,” Environment, October, 1978.
“ A Civil Servant of the Environment,” The Center Magazine, May/June, 1978.
“The Nuclear Recession,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April, 1978.
“Waiting for a Philosopher King: Making Cancer Policy Until Certainty Arrives” Sierra, February/March, 1978.
“The Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor: A Poor Buy,” Environment, May/June, 1975 (with Thomas Cochran and
Arthur Tamplin).

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“The Hazards of Plutonium,” Natural History, January, 1975.
“Plutonium Recycle: The Fateful Step,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November, 1974 (with Thomas Cochranand Arthur Tamplin).
“The 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act: Problems and Prospects After One Year,” Natural Resources
Lawyer, Spring, 1974.
“The Federal Role in Technology Assessment and Control,” Federal Environmental Law, (E. Dolgin and T.
Guilbert, ed.), 1974.
“A Model Negative Income Tax Statute,” 78 Yale Law Journal 269, 1968 (with others).
“Judicial Review of Displacee Relocation in Urban Renewal,” 77 Yale Law Journal 966, 1968.

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