Gus Speth's New Publication Urges Green Transformation

In the four decades since the environmental revolution of the 1970s, how far have we come?

This is the question that Gus Speth posed when he took the podium for the National Council for Science and the Environment’s (NCSE) 10th John H. Chafee Memorial Lecture at the New Green Economy Conference last January. Speth challenged the American environmental movement’s social, political, and economic progress in his compelling speech, “A New American Environmentalism and the New Economy.”

NCSE has published the entirety of Gus Speth’s lecture for broad distribution. To get your own hard copy of “A New American Environmentalism and the New Economy,” complete and return the order form. You may also download a free PDF at the same site.

Speth points out that, “One of the most remarkable and yet under-noticed things going on in our country today is the proliferation of innovative models of ‘local living’ economies, sustainable communities and transition towns and for-benefit businesses which prioritize community and environment over profit and growth.”

Video of Gus Speth’s Chafee Memorial Lecture.

About Gus Speth James Gustave Speth, Esq., a leader in environmental education, recently joined New York City-based think tank Demos as a Distinguished Senior Fellow and began a position as Professor of Law at the Vermont Law School in July 2010. In 2009 he completed a decade-long tenure as Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. From 1993 to 1999, Speth was Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and chair of the UN Development Group. Prior to his service at the UN, he was founder and president of the World Resources Institute; professor of law at Georgetown University; chairman of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality (Carter Administration); and senior attorney and cofounder, Natural Resources Defense Council. He earned degrees from Yale University and Yale Law School, and he was a Rhodes Scholar.

About the John H. Chafee Memorial Lecture. Each year the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) hosts transformative speakers in its annual National Conference on Science Policy and the Environment. The most prestigious of the conference’s speaking roles is that in memory if the late John H. Chafee, a visionary leader in political, social and environmental reform.