James Gustave Speth is a fellow at Vermont Law School and a Distinguished Next System Fellow at the Democracy Collaborative, a nonpartisan public policy research and advocacy organization. A former dean of the Yale School of the Environment, he also co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), was founder and president of the World Resources Institute, and served as administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. He is the author of eight books, including the award-winning The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability and Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment.
James Gustave Speth

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You Say You Want a Revolution
DECADES AGO, I WAS A reasonable person and I thought reasonable thoughts. One of them was that deep change—change that I could even then see was necessary—would grow from actions responding Continue reading
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A Progressive’s Bookshelf
IN MY IMAGINATION, THE ACTIVIST communities to which many of us feel close affection are each in separate little boats paddling ourselves through swirling waters. Whether flagged for environmental integrity, social Continue reading
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Ten Books for Every Transformational Change Bookshelf
IT’S NOW INCREASINGLY APPRECIATED that our current system of political economy is failing us right and left. The search is on for a new economy and polity that can routinely deliver Continue reading
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America the Possible: A Manifesto, Part II
Part one of this article. WE NEED A COMPELLING VISION for a new future, a vision of a better country — America the Possible — that is still within our power Continue reading
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America the Possible: A Manifesto, Part I
Part one of two. Part two was published in the May/June 2012 issue. LIKE YOU AND OTHER AMERICANS, I love my country, its wonderful people, its boundless energy, its creativity in Continue reading
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Change Everything Now
JAMES GUSTAVE “Gus” Speth’s office at Yale reeks of Old World charm, with a high ceiling and dark, wood-paneled walls adorned with souvenirs from his travels in Africa and Asia. Speth, Continue reading