Greening the Millennium?

This collection of specially commissioned essays aims both to broaden understanding of environmental issues, and to explore their implications for politics. The book discusses the concepts of the 'risk society' and 'ecological modernisation', examines the relationship between science, public policy and democratic renewal, and analyses green politics in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. Introduction: Greening the Millennium? (Michael Jacobs).

Perspectives.

Global Risk Politics (Ulrich Beck).

Beyond Left and Right? Ecological Politics, Capitalism and Modernity. (Ted Benton).

The Quality of Life: Social Goods and the Politics of Consumption. (Michael Jacobs).

Environmental Politics: The Old and the New. (Jonathon Porritt).

Political Economy.

Ecological Modernisation. Restructuring Industrial Economies. (Andrew Gouldson and Joseph Murphy).

Interpreting Sustainable Development: The Case of Land Use Planning. (Susan Owens).

The Political Economy of Environmental Tax Reform. (Stephen Tindale).

Governance.

Environment, Risk and Democracy. (Robin Grove-White).

Responses.

Using Science. (Phyllis Starkey).

Making Environmental Policy. (Derek Osborn).

Local Agenda 21: The Renewal of Local Democracy? (Stephen Young).

Voluntary Associations and the Sustainable Society. (Bronislaw Szerszynski).

Public and Partoes.

Public Opinion and the Environment. (Robert Worcester).

Lessons from Europe.

Green Politics and Parties in Germany. (Detlef Jahn).

Greening and Ungreening the Netherlands. (Paul Lucardie).

Prospects: The Parties and the Environment in the UK. (Neil Carter).

Index

"Greening the Millennium edited by London School of Economics geographer Jacobs, more than lives up to its promise...
"I would recommend Greening the Millennium to students and academics in geography, environmental studies, sociology, and political science, as well as to politicians, planners, policymakers, and indeed anyone with an informed interest in 'the environment'." B. Dodson, Queen's University

" This is one of the best assessments of the current state of the environmental debate and eco-politics in Britain which I have read for a long time! Jacobs brings together 17 top contributors from diverse backgrounds. Their analyses are competent, realistic and accessible and add up to a multi-dimensional overview...
" It is a major achievement of this volume that it picks up and critically reviews the major buzz-words, debates and strategies which currently dominate the eco-debate without reproducing either the presently widespread but arguably unjustified green optimism or the equally unjustified older eco-pessimism." Ingolfur Bluhdorn, University of Bath

Michael Jacobs is Visiting Professor in the School of Public Policy at University College London. An environmental economist and political theorist, his work has focused on the political economy of environmental change. His books include The Green Economy: Environment, Sustainable Development and the Politics of the Future, Greening the Millennium? The New Politics of the Environment - ed, Blackwell, 1997 -, The Politics of the Real World and Paying for Progress: A New Politics of Tax for Public Spending - Fabian Society 2000 -. From 2004-10 he was a Special Adviser to the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, responsible for domestic and international policy on environment, energy and climate change, and before that a member of the Council of Economic Advisers at the UK Treasury. He was formerly General Secretary of the Fabian Society, Co-Editor of The Political Quarterly and a research fellow at Lancaster University and the London School of Economics. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research and Senior Adviser to the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which he helped to found. Few people now doubt the seriousness of global environmental degration. Governments and corporations alike proclaim their commitment to ‘sustainable development’. Membership of environmental pressure groups runs into the millions. Environmental issues- from global warming to BSE, water shortages to anti-road protests-are never far away from the headlines. Yet in mainstream political life the environment remains a marginal subject. It is barely contested between the political parties, and largely ignored by the political media. Widespread public concern has not translated into political priority.

This collection of specially commissioned essays seeks to understand the politics of the environment afresh. Placing the environment in the wider context of social, economic and cultural change, it aims both to broaden the understanding of environmental issues in themselves, and to explore the implications of environmental concern for politics in general.

The book is divided into four sections. The first offers some alternative perspectives on contemporary environmental politics, including a debate on the influential idea of the ‘risk society’. The second section looks at the political economy of the environment. It discusses the concept of ‘ecological modernisation’ and the meaning of sustainable development in practice. The third section explores the troubled relationship between science and public policy making, and shows how environmental politics has become bound up with the need to renew the culture and institutions of democracy. The final section examines the evidence of public concern about the environment, draws lessons from the experience of green politics in Germany and the Netherlands, and looks at the prospects for environmental politics in the UK party system.

Written by distinguished academics, actiists and commentators, the book will appeal not only to those concerned about ebvironment, but to anyone with an interest in the future of British politics.