Can we find ways of living that are sustainable and deeply satisfying, that ensure economic and political democracy, and are passionate about beauty, elegant design, and the wildness of nature? The contributors to Sustainable Planet say we can, and offer 16 remarkable visions of how to get from here to there, * Specific proposals from citizen and labor coalitions that articulate a positive alternative to the free-trade model of globalization * The emergence of local food systems that allow us to eat fresher, better tasting food while protecting family farms and conserving the environment * New thinking about industrial design and engineering that is leading to production systems which generate no waste * How we might create a fashion industry that weds aesthetic pleasure with social justice * Five economic policy recommendations that could move us toward a sustainable economy * What you can do to create a real sense of community where you live * A road map for building the political will to change the system before it's too late. This anthology grew out of the work of the Center for a New American Dream (CNAD), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Americans change the way they consume to improve quality of life, protect the environment, and promote social justice.
Author
Juliet Schor’s research over the last ten years has focussed on issues pertaining to trends in work and leisure, consumerism, the relationship between work and family, women's issues and economic justice. Schor's latest book is Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Scribner 2004). She is also author of The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure and The Overspent American: Upscaling, Downshifting and the New Consumer. She has co-edited, The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience, The Consumer Society Reader, and Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century. Earlier in her career, her research focussed on issues of wages, productivity, and profitability. She also did work on the political economy of central banking. Schor is currently is at work on a project on the commercialization of childhood, and is beginning research on environmental sustainability and its relation to Americans’ lifestyles. Schor is a board member and co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream, an organization devoted to transforming North American lifestyles to make them more ecologically and socially sustainable. She also teaches periodically at Schumacher College, an International Center for Ecological Studies based in south-west England. from http://www2.bc.edu/~schorj/default.html
