James Gustave Speth is author of America the Possible: Manifesto for a New Economy (Yale Press) and, most recently, They Knew: The U.S. Federal Government’s Role in Causing the Climate Crisis (MIT Press). He has served as Dean of the Yale School of the Environment, as President of the World Resources Institute, and as Administrator of the UN Development Programme. He was Chair of the US Council on Environmental Quality during the Carter Administration.
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Towards a Climate-Capable Democracy
My thesis here is that democracy in America, the democracy practiced every day, is a major cause of the climate crisis and to address that crisis we need a transformation in American democracy. Democratic political action must be the spearhead of the attack on climate destruction and its biological impoverishment, and for that America needs a climate-capable democracy.
August 21, 2025
Leave the Light On: Thinking Down the Road
We need social resilience, and what greater builder of social resilience can there be than communities coming together to work for a future that gives priority to real people and places and to a life-sustaining planet.
July 23, 2025
Climate: Facing the New Reality and Fighting Back
A new and frightening world of climate change is unfolding around us, and Donald Trump’s election will strengthen its hold. I will focus here on three things: What will the emerging climate reality be like? How did we get here? What can we still do?
January 17, 2025
Odyssey: Hopes and dreams
Societies around the globe face multiple crises. In this context, is marshaling hope and dreaming up beautiful futures—imagining a world that could be—a useful response, or is it escapism?
December 10, 2024
Underlying the Democrats’ defeat: A different view
“The Democratic Party has a major working-class voter issue. It started a decade ago as a working-class White issue. It’s now gotten even worse and spread across racial lines.”
November 6, 2024
New system possibility
My hope is that the US and other countries will see the wisdom of fusing measures for transformative change with measures to address climate threats. The two should go forward hand in hand.
September 13, 2024