Edward B. Barbier

On his book A Global Green New Deal: Rethinking the Economic Recovery

Cover Interview of September 05, 2010

In a nutshell

They both indicate that the current economic recovery from the global recession is inherently unsustainable.

In 2008, the world was confronted with multiple crises—fuel, food and financial—and by December the result was the worst economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Overcoming these crises required a package of policy measures similar to Roosevelt’s New Deal, but at the global scale and embracing a wider and greener vision.

My book, A Global Green New Deal, offers a range of policy prescriptions to green the economic recovery, which will also reduce threats to the inherent stability of the world economy.

Meeting the short-term challenge of reviving the global economy need not mean sacrificing long-term economic and environmental sustainability. A Global Green New Deal (GGND) is a comprehensive policy strategy for ensuring a lasting world economic recovery.

Reviving growth and creating jobs should be essential objectives, but policies should also aim to reduce carbon dependency, protect ecosystems and water resources, and alleviate poverty. Otherwise, economic recovery today will do little to avoid economic and environmental crises in the future.

globalization / environment / international relations / economy / economic crisis / economic policy /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

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Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009