Stephanie, you have misunderstood what capitalism is--a mistake that many make (so you're in good company :) ). Capitalism isn't just some "theory" of the economy. It is a real thing, even though intangible. Capitalism is made up by the laws governing ownership of productive materials and resources. It is made up by the cultural attitudes and patterns of behavior of people in the way they relate to work, to their boss, to their employees, to what they believe is appropriate for the intersection of politics and economics. It is made up by the institutions and systems of business and commerce. Obviously, that covers a lot of ground, which is why (among other reasons) people like Speth talk about different forms of Capitalism, some for better and some for worse. Anyway, all this means that Capitalism is something to be considered in its own right--it's not nearly as passive a thing as an inanimate object like a hammer. The way that Capitalism is shaped and put together create pressures on people to behave certain ways, so it's wrong to say that Capitalism is just at the mercy of how the person uses it. You can't just ignore the ownership structure of Capitalism when you have a boss you don't like. You can't just "use" the tool of Capitalism to have either one relationship to the stock owners of the company you work for or another relationship. They own the company--end of story. They want the stock price to rise and they want dividends--end of story. If you have to be told to work harder, work longer, accept a pay cut, accept cuts to your benefits, or lose your job entirely to satisfy the demands of the owners--end of story. Changing the owners does not change the structure of corporate capitalism. Just as "power corrupts," ownership in a corporate society induces people to behave in ways they wouldn't necessarily choose to if they thought about it or had the individual choice. The long and short: Speth and Mazzocchi are right to think about the system itself and what ways might be necessary to change the system if you want an ecologically sustainable world. That doesn't mean the answers they arrived at are necessarily right, only that they're right, at least, to ask the question.

"We have changed the world, and we wonder why things won't stay the same." --Les Lanyon

I find Ted's comment below about the need for a unified movement where environmental issues are CENTRAL to be interesting, inasmuch as I have been critical in the past of of social justice and anti-war campaigns and movements for their superficial lip service to the environment and especially global warming. Ted, like others, had this vision of a unified movement but stopped short of promoting environmental issues as CENTRAL, probably because of his background in leftist politics and a bit of timorousness that he might be criticized by others on the left.

It is commendable, but in the end not so surprising, that someone like Speth would have expanded his political understanding and analysis during his long career. People who work in groups like NRDC are not stupid. They are extremely knowledgeable. They know a lot more about environmental issues than the general public and the left (which isnt saying much). Recall that during the heated anti nuke battles of the 1970s, numerous scientists and engineers abandoned their jobs and political positions to side with the critics of nuclear power, with the happy result that the construction of new reactors in this country ended.  Most of the NRDC people stayed on to reap the benefits of status and influence. Speth moved onward and upward. We owe him a debt of gratitude for taking the environmental arguments to their logical conclusion : that capitalism is to blame.

But let's not give the marxists credit. They railed against capitalism from the beginning...but NOT for the same reasons. Many were the debates I had with leftists and social justice activists when I pointed out that it was economic growth that was the root of the problem, and that both capitalist and socialist economies supported such growth as well as supporting industrial expansion and technology. The left's oppposition to capitalism was rooted in ideology and a utopian dream of "worker control" of the "means of production". The person in this country who most accurately represented this dream  was Barry Commoner, who looked to technology and changes in worker relations as salvation, while deriding nature as being unworthy of any respect or deference. He famously declared, at his 80th birthday celebration at Cooper Union, that nature will take care of itself.

This peremptory denigration of not just nature but of the "tree huggers" who purportedly put nature before people, of those fighting for wilderness, endangered species, habitat protection and biodiversity, is still operative. One need only read what Van Jones, leader of the "green growth" movement had to say last year in this respect, as he and his movement put the economy and jobs first and nature hindmost, while blasting environmentalists for ignoring racism and the poor.....as if the fight to preserve the planet and its ecosystems were not a fight for all humanity and survival.

I sincerely hope that Ted will use his own insights to come over to the ecological viewpoint, in which direction he seems pointed if not yet headed, in which these ecological concerns and battles take precedence, because they subsume all the social and economic justice issues of concern. Ted is probably smart enough to recognize that the creation of an ecological paradigm and society necessarily brings about the radical changes, including that of political empowerment, that social justice activists and the left profess to desire. Maybe he can put his talents to use in persuading these other movements of the centrality of ecological principles and objectives.

Mr. Glick,

Your offhand analysis of "capitalism" (to be clear I include the authors you review in this stupidity) reeks of intellectual laziness and a fundamental misunderstanding of both history and economics.  We have never lived in a pure "capitalist" system just as we have never lived in a pure "communist" or "socialist" system.  There is always a role for government and a role for business, and no major problem has ever been confronted without the buy-in of both institutions.  The climate problem can only be solved by fundamentally changing both government and business.  It's not an either/or question.  

Frameworks like the ones you cite and propose actually do harm because they distract from the very real (and hard) work of creating the institutional systems in place that will radically reduce our dependence on fossil fuel.  Spouting pseudo-scientific, paranoid theories about replacing the "corporate-dominated, two-party political system" and citing discredited axioms such as "a rejection of the necessity of constant economic growth" are an embarrassment to this otherwise thoughtful blog (and should be to you).  

To paraphrase from the movie "Billy Madison": Mr. Glick what you wrote is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent post were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone reading this blog is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.