Planning Green Growth
A socialist contribution to the debate on environmental sustainability
By Pete Dickenson
Note that this books was updated and reprinted as Planning for the Planet: How Socialism Could Save the Environment available at Left Books
Preface
This important and timely new pamphlet (published on the eve of the ‘Earth Summit’ in Johannesburg), analyses the causes and scope of environmental destruction across the globe and asks what is the way forward.
‘Planning Green Growth’ is a personal contribution by Pete Dickenson to the debate on environmental sustainability.
The author is a researcher and lecturer at a university in Britain in the fields of environmental management and East European studies, particularly on the impact of the restoration of capitalism on the former Soviet Union.
Pete is also a long standing member of the Socialist Party, section of the CWI in England and Wales.
Climate change demo December 2007 , photo Paul Mattsson
Pete clearly indicts the anarchic market system of capitalism as the chief culprit destroying the planet’s resources and indeed threatening the existence of all life in the long-term.
He provides a detailed look at the arguments put forward by the environmental movement, including the theories of the ‘steady, state market system’ and ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sustainability.
He asks, can the advocates of the ‘eco-socialism’ tendency provide a solution?
In the second half of the pamphlet, Pete argues the case for a socialist programme for the environment.
He deals with questions such as, ‘Where will the resources for sustainable growth come from?’ and ‘What are the lessons from the Soviet Union?’.
Only a planned economy, democratically controlled, can tackle the problem of global warming and other threats, and provide the basis for the ending of world poverty, hunger, disease and homelessness.
‘Planning Green Growth’, backed up with facts and figures, is a vital contribution to the debate taking place on environmental sustainability.
Pete Dickenson’s contribution to this issue of global importance will be of huge interest to environmental, anti-globalisation and socialist activists, as well as to many workers, youth and students.
