John B. Robinson - Böcker

The recent United Nations Conference on the Environment andDevelopment, popularly known as the Earth Summit, was a milestone eventfor sustainable development. In dealing with ecological anddevelopmental issues concurrently, it brought the internationalenvironmental agenda to the fore. Canada was the first industrializedcountry to announce that it would be a signatory to the BiodiversityConvention, and by furthering future forestry and global warmingconventions, it played an important leadership role.Achieving Sustainable Development explores how well Canadahas met the Earth Summit's targets and attempts to find ways inwhich the public can become involved in such issues. Its authors stressthe importance of integration of information from various fields andseek to stimulate the exchange of knowledge among the academiccommunity, government, non-governmental organizations and industry. Thecontributors look far beyond merely identifying and analyzing selectedissues and problems. To facilitate public discussion and to affectpolicy development, at least one initiative is proposed and detailedfor each problem identified.Achieving Sustainable Development provides an overallintroduction to critical subjects in sustainable development --industrial growth, women, institutional arrangements, industrialpractices, and aboriginal peoples. Most importantly, it argues for theimmediate development of a research and policy agenda for Canada andsuggests mechanisms for its implementation.

Life in 2030 is a ground-breaking, practical, and, aboveall, positive vision of life in twenty-first-century Canada. As we moveinto the next century, the development of sustainable andenvironmentally benign patterns of resource utilization andsocioeconomic development is an essential priority. In this book, JohnRobinson and his co-authors investigate the possibility and impacts ofa sustainable future for Canada.Based on research initiated by the Sustainable Society Project in1988, Life in 2030 is unique in that it uses backcastinginstead of forecasting to trace the path of Canada forty years into thefuture to the year 2030. Instead of predicting the most likely futurebased on current trends, the authors set out a desirable future anddiscuss the changes that would need to occur between 1990 and 2030 toarrive at this future vision. This vision, derived from ethical,political, and ecological principles, is not viewed as definitive, forthe authors hope to inspire others to conceive of, and work towards,their own visions of a sustainable future.Life in 2030 makes a significant contribution tointerdisciplinary studies on the environment and sustainability becauseit develops a scenario that allows for an evaluation of the changesrequired to achieve a sustainable society. This book is requiredreading for anyone interested in a sustainable future environment. Italso provides an original and provocative look at life in Canada in thetwenty-first century.