James Gustave Speth is now Professor at the School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences at Yale, an institution founded a century ago by the legendary Bernhard Fernow. Having studied Law, Speth was one of the founders of the Natural Resources Defence Council. Equally useful in terms of his insights into governmental policymaking was his role as an advisor to Jimmy Carter, and his central role in the formulation of the Global 2000 Report. At the global level, he also headed the UN Development Programme at a time when its brief and manifest expanded in significant ways. Global Environmental Challenges is both a look back at his vast experience in this field and also an attempt to draw together a workable agenda for forces of change in difficult times. The book not only lucidly and briefly sums up key challenges; it also catalogues where and who spearheads the efforts. A whole list of websites and sources makes this an especially valuable book for the concerned citizen as much as for the scholar.
January 2006, volume 30, No 1